This week’s cover, by the designer Frank Viva, is a colorful, lyrical springtime ode to the pleasures of biking. We spoke to Viva about his love affair with cycling, his island retreat, and learning to prioritize what matters.
Geoffrey O’Brien – Schemes Gone Awry
Richard Wilbur’s translations of Molière, now in the Library of America, have a fluency that goes beyond meter and rhyme to encompass textures of speech and movements of thought.
Molière: The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations
Fintan O’Toole – Our Hypocrisy on War Crimes
The US’s history of moral evasiveness around wartime atrocities undermines the very institution that might eventually bring Putin and his subordinates to justice: the International Criminal Court.
Conservation efforts for waterbirds, such as the Dalmatian pelicans (Pelecanus crispus) pictured on the cover, have centred on creating protected areas to maintain suitable habitats. But it has been unclear to what extent protected areas affect species’ population levels. In this week’s issue, Hannah Wauchope and her colleagues present an analysis that suggests protected areas have a mixed impact on waterbird populations. The researchers examined 1,506 protected areas to assess how they affected 27,055 waterbird populations across the globe. By assessing population levels before and after the implementation of protection, and comparing this change between protected and unprotected areas, the researchers identified the mixed impact, but also saw a strong indication that areas that were managed for waterbirds or their habitats were more likely to benefit populations. As a result, the team suggests that conservation strategies will require not only an increase in the number of protected areas, but active management of those areas to have the best chance of success.
The cover shows an artist’s impression of the pterosaur Tupandactylus imperator. Although feathered pterosaurs have been reported, these claims have been controversial and it has not been clear whether these leathery-winged flying reptiles had feathers of different colours like modern-day birds.
In this week’s issue, Aude Cincotta and her colleagues present evidence that not only did pterosaurs have feathers but that the feathers probably had varied coloration. The researchers analysed a partial skull of Tupandactylus, found in Brazil and dated to around 113 million years ago. They identified two types of feather along the base of the crest, one of which featured branched structures very similar to modern feathers. They also found pigment-producing organelles in both types of feather and the skin on the head crest. The team suggests that these coloured feathers would have been used in visual communication and that their presence in Tupandactylus indicates the ability to manipulate feather colour stretches back farther than was previously realized.
Boomers Daily 