Research: New Scientist Magazine – August 26, 2023
Tag Archives: Magazines
Culture: The American Scholar – Autumn 2023
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR – AUTUMN 2023:
Will the Real Vergil Please Stand Up?
Making sense of the life of a poet about whom we know so little
by Sarah Ruden
Great works of literature are sly and powerful beasts that pounce on their readers, grabbing them by the neck and shaking them back and forth. The young Augustine looks like a typical victim of Vergil’s Aeneid. The schoolboy being brought up as a Christian in fourth-century CE North Africa found the first-century BCE epic poem of pagan Rome the most impressive thing in his cultural life to date. Tellingly, his reaction shows no interest in the poem’s theme of individual sacrifice in the name of imperial destiny; rather, into middle age, the great theologian and founder of institutional Catholic monasticism remembered weeping for Dido, who commits suicide after her lover, Aeneas, abandons her at the end of Book IV.
A Room for the Ages
Oglethorpe University’s time capsule was meant to last thousands of years, but will it?
by Colin Dickey
Politics: The Guardian Weekly – August 25, 2023
The Guardian Weekly (August 25, 2023) – The issue features ‘Fever Pitch’ – The unstoppable rise of women’s football; ‘Trust me, I’m a nurse’ – How a British child serial killer went undetected, and Art, where you least expect it…
The conviction and sentencing of Lucy Letby, who murdered seven babies while working as a hospital nurse, shocked Britain this week. As she becomes only the country’s fourth woman to receive a whole-life imprisonment term, Josh Halliday recounts her dreadful crimes and why she was not investigated for so long, despite several colleagues’ suspicions.
Sports writer Paul MacInnes reports from Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s bid to buy up chunks of world sport using its $600bn public investment fund, a makeover project that is particularly pertinent in the light of allegations in a Human Rights Watch report this week.
Culture catches up with Devo, the new wave band from Akron, Ohio, who are hanging up their curious “energy dome” hats after 50 years. And there’s a lovely feature by Claire Armitstead about hidden art, from underwater sculpture parks to pinhole dioramas concealed inside traffic bollards.
Preview: Foreign Affairs Magazine- SEPT/OCT 2023
Delusions of Détente
Why America and China Will Be Enduring Rivals
With U.S.-Chinese relations worse than they have been in over 50 years, an old fairy tale has resurfaced: if only the United States would talk more to China and accommodate its rise, the two countries could live in peace. The story goes that with ample summitry, Washington could recognize Beijing’s redlines and restore crisis hotlines and cultural exchanges. Over time and through myriad points of face-to-face contact—in other words, reengagement—the two countries could settle into peaceful, if still competitive, coexistence.
The End of the Russian Idea
What It Will Take to Break Putinism’s Grip
In June 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin staged a special ceremony on the St. Petersburg waterfront to mark the anniversary of three flags: the flag of the Russian Federation, otherwise known as Peter the Great’s tricolor, formally unfurled in 1693; the imperial Russian flag, introduced by Tsar Alexander II in 1858; and the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle, adopted by the Soviet state 100 years ago and later used by Joseph Stalin. Putin watched the event from a boat as the National Philharmonic and the St. Petersburg State Choir performed the national anthem, which, thanks to a law Putin enacted in 2000, has the same melody as its Stalin-era counterpart.
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – August 28, 2023
Elon Musk’s Shadow Rule
How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.
By Ronan Farrow
Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine. A staffer handed him an iPhone—in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night texts and colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact: “He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’ ”
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
I was searching for truth. Instead, I found a family.
By the time I was twenty-one, I had made two short films and was dead set on making a feature. I had gone to a distinguished school in Munich, where I had few friends, and which I hated so passionately that I imagined setting it on fire. There is such a thing as academic intelligence, and I didn’t have it. Intelligence is always a bundle of qualities: logical thought, articulacy, originality, memory, musicality, sensitivity, speed of association, and so on. In my case, the bundle seemed to be differently composed. I remember asking a fellow-student to write a term paper for me, which he did quite easily. In jest, he asked me what I would do for him in return, and I promised that I would make him immortal. His name was Hauke Stroszek. I gave his last name to the main character in my first film, “Signs of Life.” I called another film “Stroszek.”
Arts & Culture: The New Criterion — SEPT 2023
The spirit of Noël Coward by Bruce Bawer
Plato on “men” & “women” by Joshua T. Katz
Rachmaninoff reigns by David Dubal
The Roman custom by James Hankins
“Archaeology”: a new poem by Katie Hartsock
Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – Sep/Oct 2023
Smithsonian Magazine (September/October Issue) – Journey to Spain’s last Moorish Kingdom – From the magical Alhambra to desert backcountry and hidden coastal glories…welcome to Andalusia; Saving the world’s most coveted Chocolate; Mead – it’s not just for Vikings, and more…
Famed 5,300-Year-Old Alps Iceman Was a Balding Middle-Aged Man With Dark Skin and Eyes
:focal(800x602:801x603)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/de/52/de526958-55af-4faf-8b79-5b58b958e09a/iceman_web.jpg)
Genetic analysis shows that Ötzi was descended from farmers who migrated from an area that is now part of Turkey
Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old mummy found murdered high in the Alps with an arrow in his back, is a prehistoric celebrity who attracts 300,000 visitors a year to his custom cooling chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. Years of studies have revealed much about the Iceman, from his last meal—dried ibex and deer meat with einkorn wheat—to the distant Tuscan origins of his copper ax. But while the wizened mummy is extraordinarily well preserved for its age, it gives little impression of how Ötzi would have appeared in life. Now, a detailed genetic study has revealed much more about what the Iceman looked like—and traces the Copper Age corpse’s ancestral lineage back to Anatolia, an area that is now the Asian portion of Turkey.
Scientists have newly sequenced Ötzi’s genome a decade after an earlier effort, using modern techniques and comparative data to produce a much higher-quality result than ever before. The study published Wednesday in Cell Genomics reveals that Ötzi had dark eyes and skin pigmentation darker than that commonly seen among modern inhabitants of Greece or Sicily, though he’s previously been depicted with lighter skin more akin to that of Europeans living in the Alps today. And contrary to most artists’ interpretations, it also appears that he suffered from an age-old affliction still troublesome today—he was going bald.
Views: The New York Times Magazine – August 20, 2023
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (August 20, 2023) – In this week’s cover story, what are “forever chemicals” and what are they doing to us? Plus, inside the racism scandal that rocked an affluent town’s high school and checking in with the dancehall star Sean Paul.
‘Forever Chemicals’ Are Everywhere. What Are They Doing to Us?
PFAS lurk in so much of what we eat, drink and use. Scientists are only beginning to understand how they’re impacting our health — and what to do about them.
By Kim Tingley
The Faroe Islands, an incongruous speckling of green in the North Atlantic, are about as far away as you can hope to get on Earth from a toxic-waste dump, time zones distant from the nearest population centers (Norway to the east, Iceland to the west). Pál Weihe was born in the Faroes and has lived there for most of his life. He is a public-health authority for the nation, population around 53,000; chairman of the Faroese Medical Association and chief physician of the Department of Occupational Medicine and Public Health in the Faroese hospital system. He is also vice chairman of the Faroe Islands Art Society; a widower; a grandfather. A crumpled funeral program and half-empty juice boxes share space in the back seat of his Land Cruiser.
The ‘World’s Happiest Man’ Shares His Three Rules for Life
By David Marchese
Matthieu Ricard is an ordained Buddhist monk and an internationally best-selling author of books about altruism, animal rights, happiness and wisdom. His humanitarian efforts led to his homeland’s awarding him the French National Order of Merit. (Ricard’s primary residence is a Nepalese monastery.) He was the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter and holds a Ph.D in cellular genetics. In the early 2000s, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that Ricard’s brain produced gamma waves — which have been linked to learning, attention and memory — at such pronounced levels that the media named him “the world’s happiest man.”
Research Preview: Science Magazine – August 18, 2023
‘Still in shock.’ Amid wildfire tragedy, Maui scientists assess their research losses
Blazes and high winds blew projects apart and left a tight-knit research community shaken. What will it take to prevent future island fires?
In the wake of a series of powerful wildfires that ripped through Maui’s dry forests and the historic city of Lahaina this week killing more than 50 people, researchers on the island remain concerned about the personal fallout for fellow scientists and their families. Some are reeling from disruption to their projects: Studies of whales may be disrupted, for example, and a rare plant facility sustained damage. “We’re still wrapping our heads around what this really means, because right now, most of us are still in shock,” says marine mammal ecologist Marc Lammers. “And, of course, we’re thinking about our colleagues.”
Previews: The Economist Magazine – August 19, 2023
Why are China’s young people so disillusioned?
Xi Jinping wants them to focus on the party’s goals. Many cannot see why they should
The crowd did not seem excited to see George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. When Wham! became the first Western pop group to perform in Communist China, the audience was instructed to stay in their seats. It was 1985 and, despite appearances, the young people in attendance were in fact joyous. The country around them was by no means free, but it was starting to reform and open up. Over the next three decades the economy would grow at a rapid pace, producing new opportunities.
China’s defeated youth
Young Chinese have little hope for the future. Xi Jinping wants them to toughen up
In the southern city of Huizhou an electronics factory is hiring. The monthly salary on offer is between 4,500 and 6,000 yuan (or $620 and $830), enough to pay for food and essentials, but not much else. The advertisement says new employees are expected to “work hard and endure hardship”. The message might have resonated with Chinese of an older generation, many of whom worked long hours in poor conditions to give their children a brighter future. But many of those children now face similar drudgery—and are unwilling to endure it. “I can’t sit on an assembly line,” says Zhang, a 20-something barista with dyed-red hair at a local tea shop. He scoffs at the idea of making such sacrifices for so little gain. The job at the tea shop pays just 4,000 yuan a month, but he enjoys chatting up customers.
Boomers Daily 