Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia this morning, having spent two unremarkable days in Israel and the West Bank.
As president, he has been unusually disengaged from the Middle East, and will probably return home with little to show for his peregrinations. We survey the state of sex education in Latin American schools, and explain why dinosaurs outcompeted other species.
President Biden tried to isolate Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over human rights abuses. Now, the United States needs Saudi Arabia, and Mr. Biden is about to visit.
COVER: Voltage pulses from the tip of a scanning probe microscope induce single-molecule chemical reactions with selectivity and reversibility. Different constitutional isomers (distinguished here in shades of red, orange, and yellow) are selected by the polarity and magnitude of the voltage pulse. The findings advance the understanding of tip-induced chemistry and reduction-oxidation reactions in general. See pages 261 and 298.
Check out what’s new this week in Science: https://fcld.ly/uc4b5kh
Nature Magazine – July 14, 2022 Issue
Although the domestic dog can trace its origins to the grey wolf (Canis lupus), exactly when, where and how domestication happened has remained a source of debate. In this week’s issue, Anders Bergström, Pontus Skoglund and their colleagues, take a step towards resolving this question. The researchers analysed the genomes of 72 ancient wolves from across Europe, Siberia and North America, and spanning the past 100,000 years. They found that dogs are most closely related to ancient wolves from eastern Eurasia but that dogs in the Near East and Africa derive
up to half their ancestry from a distinct population related to modern southwest Eurasian wolves. Although none of the genomes analysed was a direct match for either dog ancestry, the researchers say that it has narrowed down where next to look for the ancestors of domestic dogs.
A.M. Edition for July 14. The World Food Program says higher food and fuel costs, due in part to the war in Ukraine, have pushed an additional 47 million people into food insecurity since March.
WSJ Africa deputy bureau chief Gabriele Steinhauser discusses the impact in the Horn of Africa. Plus, a look at what is behind the strength of the U.S. dollar against the euro and the yen. Annmarie Fertoli hosts.
Prices climbed 9.1 percent from a year earlier, ramping up pressure on the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates.
Our new issue is now online, featuring 29 responses to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Barbara Newman on medieval sanctuary, @moonjets on Shelley, Mimi Jiang on the end of Shanghai’s lockdown and @mmschwartz on the Bataclan verdict. https://lrb.co.uk
This week’s TLS, featuring @profbate on Arcadia in art and literature; @philipcball on Peter Higgs; @anelsona on philanthropy and inequality; @billmckibben on our climate turning point; @jamesamarcus on Emerson and Thoreau; @ScurrRuth on open-air painting – and more.
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, has been transferred to a brutal prison. Other Kremlin opponents have been imprisoned or exiled, as Russia has grown more repressive since invading Ukraine.
The world’s population will hit 8bn this year; we discuss which regions are growing and which are not. And why clear wine bottles are a bad idea.
Boomers Daily 