Views: Covid Cartoons – Week Of April 2, 2021
Tag Archives: March 2021
Biotechnology: ‘mRNA Could Change The World’
The dream of mRNA persevered in part because its core principle was tantalizingly simple, even beautiful: The world’s most powerful drug factory might be inside all of us.
Like so many breakthroughs, this apparent overnight success was many decades in the making. More than 40 years had passed between the 1970s, when a Hungarian scientist pioneered early mRNA research, and the day the first authorized mRNA vaccine was administered in the United States, on December 14, 2020. In the interim, the idea’s long road to viability nearly destroyed several careers and almost bankrupted several companies.
Morning News Podcast: Biden Press Conference, France-China Sanctions
We unpack Joe Biden’s first official news conference and hear about how sanctions are impacting relations between France and China.
Plus: the latest climate and energy news and a checkup on music industry sales. From Milan: Salone highlights, interviews and a daily running guide.
Walking Tours: ‘London’s Mayfair – England’ (Video)
Bordering leafy Hyde Park, Mayfair is an upscale district of elegant Georgian townhouses, exclusive hotels, and gourmet restaurants. Its world-famous retailers include bespoke tailors on Savile Row and designer fashions on Bond Street. Shoppers also head to high-end Burlington Arcade and Shepherd Market, a cluster of independent boutiques and traditional pubs. Cool modern art galleries line Cork Street.
Science: Social Insects As Models For Aging, Space Mission Crew Conflicts
Most research on aging has been done on model organisms with limited life spans, such as flies and worms. Host Meagan Cantwell talks to science writer Yao-Hua Law about how long-living social insects—some of which survive for up to 30 years—can provide new insights into aging.
Also in this episode, host Sarah Crespi talks with Noshir Contractor, the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, about his AAAS session on keeping humans in harmony during long space missions and how mock missions on Earth are being applied to plans for a crewed mission to Mars.
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (MAR 26, 2021)
Infographic: Enhancing Brain Health Across An Individual’s Lifespan
Opportunities for enhancing brain health across the lifespan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 March 2021
Summary
As we age, there are characteristic changes in our thinking, reasoning and memory skills (referred to as cognitive ageing). However, variation between people in the timing and degree of change experienced suggests that a range of factors determine individual cognitive ageing trajectories. This narrative review considers some of the lifestyle factors that might promote (or harm) cognitive health. The focus on lifestyle factors is because these are potentially modifiable by individuals or may be the targets of behavioural or societal interventions. To support that, the review briefly considers people’s beliefs and attitudes about cognitive ageing; the nature and timing of cognitive changes across the lifespan; and the genetic contributions to cognitive ability level and change. In introducing potentially modifiable determinants, a framing that draws evidence derived from epidemiological studies of dementia is provided, before an overview of lifestyle and behavioural predictors of cognitive health, including education and occupation, diet and activity.
Architecture & Culture: Harvard Design Magazine ‘American Paradigm’ (2021)
The latest issue of Harvard Design Magazine reveals full redesign and new editorial model as it assesses the establishment, and reconsideration, of the paradigm of “America”.
Harvard Design Magazine 48: America marks a turning point for the magazine as the first issue under new editorial director Julie Cirelli, featuring Mark Lee and Florencia Rodriguez as guest editors. This issue also debuts a full redesign by Alexis Mark, the Copenhagen-based graphic design firm. Publishing this month, the issue gathers contributions from leading figures across the fields of architecture, design, urban planning, fashion, art, and governance, including Maurice Cox, Shaun Donovan, Michèle Lamy, Sylvia Lavin, and Marc Norman. Join Lee, Rodriguez, and Norman, alongside contributors Paul Andersen, Neeraj Bhatia, and Maite Borjabad Lòpez-Pastor, for a virtual launch event next Tuesday, March 23, 7:30pm ET.
Harvard Design Magazine 48: America reflects on the theme and definition of “America” through lenses of cultural production, racial justice, and architectural and design practice. In the 20th century, a paradigm of America characterized by progress, openness, and democracy was perpetuated—but with an ominous underbelly of exclusion, racism, and inequity left unexamined. While viewpoints on America’s story and history differ, if not reject one other, what is widely shared is a sense of 2020 as a breaking point—or, “a consciousness of an imminent existential threshold,” as write Lee and Rodriguez.
Morning News Podcast: Big Winter Storm, Border Surge & Stimulus Checks
Dangerous winter storm batters western U.S, lawmakers blame opposing parties over border surge, and here’s why your stimulus payment may still be pending.
Sunday Morning Podcast: World News From Zurich And London (March 14)
Monocle’s Tyler Brûlé, Andrew Tuck and Emma Nelson round up the right (and wrong) answers from last week’s Sunday morning quiz.
Boomers Daily 