Times Literary Supplement (May 1, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Making it New’ – A.E. Stallings on the innovative classicism of Anne Carson’s poetry; Salman Rushdie’s memoir of survival; Politics and performance and more…
The Globalist (May 1, 2024): As war closes in on Darfur’s besieged capital, we get the latest on the conflict in Sudan.
Then: Japan, Australia, the US and the Philippines meet in Hawaii for defence talks, we hear the case for EU expansion and examine Georgia’s controversial foreign-agent bill. Plus: responsible tourism in Mallorca.
Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter (APRIL 30, 2024): The new issue features Vitamin Supplements – Yes, of No?; A large analysis clarifies the concerns about ultra-processed foods, and more….
Kate Green and Agnes Stamp take a geological tour of our islands to dig out what makes them special; granite country, chalk downland, The Fens, Wealden clay, Welsh slate, Yorkshire mill-stone grit, The Highlands and Cotswold limestone
Matthew Rice sketches the myriad architectural styles
Mark Diacono rubs the soil between his fingers
Victoria Marston wraps her tongue around dialects
Harry Pearson downs a pint or three of local ale
And finally, the ultimate quiz
Et in Arcadia ego
For Constable, the countryside was a lover, for Samuel Palmer, it offered an escape from the real world and for Paul Nash it held an inescapable lure. Michael Prodger examines the effect of British landscapes on art
The Duchess of Marlborough’s favourite painting
The ceramicist chooses an evocation of her childhood
Let us now praise the Nanny State
We should embrace Mary Poppins-esque common sense, believes Carla Carlisle
The legacy
Kate Green salutes the 10th Duke of Beaufort on the eve of the Badminton Horse Trials that set British riders on their gallop to three-day-eventing victory
Cometh the ice men
Don’t cast those jumpers out just yet, advises Lia Leendertz
Interiors
Get ready for the warmer weather with Amelia Thorpe’s pick of outdoor furniture
London Life
Royal photographs
All you need to know about cloth, cheese and Trafalgar Square
Jack Watkins tells the tale of Covent Garden
Adam Hay-Nicholls relishes the roar of engines in Savile Row
Up hill and down dale
Kathryn Bradley-Hole finds that formality is leavened by verve and personality in the gardens of Dalemain at Penrith, Cumbria, where the blue poppies bloom
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson gathers bunches of fresh watercress
Native herbs
Unmistakeable in scent, versatile in use, wild garlic is a forager’s dream, but don’t let dairy cows graze it, warns Ian Morton
Travel
Mark Hedges escapes to our nearest paradise, the Isles of Scilly
Tom Parker Bowles feasts on a proper club sandwich
Pamela Goodman dares to swim the Dordogne
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell takes her time choosing the latest wonderful watches unveiled in Geneva
MIT Technology Review (April 29, 2024): The new issue features ‘The Robots Are Coming’ – And they’re here to help; A brief, weird history of brainwashing; Office space in space; AI comes for bodycams…
The Build issue
Who says we can’t still build things? In this issue: a look at the robots we’ve always wanted; a new model for space exploration; and efforts to flood-proof Louisiana’s coastline. Plus a wild, weird history of brainwashing; designing cheese with AI; and glow-in-the dark petunias.
Apollo Magazine (April 29, 2024): The new May 2024 issue features ‘How national is the National Gallery?’; Alvaro Barrington’s winning hand; Fossil-fuelled: art and the oil industry…
The New Yorker (April 29, 2024): The new issue‘s cover featuresFaith Ringgold’s “Sonny’s Bridge, 1986” – The late artist’s work recalls her pioneering spirit through vivid, inventive designs.
Also: Kamasi Washington, “The Outsiders” reviewed, Bang on a Can’s Long Play Festival, and more.
The Return, Again, of the Power Lunch
Four Twenty Five, a luxe new dining room from the mega-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten, takes square aim at the expense-account crowd.
Donald Trump’s Sleepy, Sleazy Criminal Trial
The most striking aspect of the former President’s hush-money trial so far has been that, for the first time in a decade, Trump is struggling to command attention.
By now, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition to remake the world is undeniable. He wants to dissolve Washington’s network of alliances and purge what he dismisses as “Western” values from international bodies. He wants to knock the U.S. dollar off its pedestal and eliminate Washington’s chokehold over critical technology. In his new multipolar order, global institutions and norms will be underpinned by Chinese notions of common security and economic development, Chinese values of state-determined political rights, and Chinese technology. China will no longer have to fight for leadership. Its centrality will be guaranteed.
How long will the world’s forests impound carbon below ground?
by Jonathan Shaw
MARYVILLE, Tennessee, lies near the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, a range home to more tree species than exist in all of Europe. Benton Taylor grew up amidst this abundance, but as a boy, he barely noticed the plants. In the nearby national park, a family friend was raising—together with a menagerie of other mammals—a pair of bears orphaned as cubs. Taylor dreamed of studying these apex denizens of the forest, who forage at the top of the food chain. But as his education and understanding grew, his curiosity shifted to seed-dispersing animals, plants, and the soil and nutrients that sustain them: a trip down the trophic pyramid, driven by an appreciation of forests as ecological systems in which plants are primary producers. “Now I’ve half moved into the basement,” jokes the assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, whose research encompasses the strategies plants use to obtain essential nutrients such as nitrogen, and how that, in turn, affects their ability to store another vital element with a global climate impact: carbon.
DIVERSIFYING one’s assets is useful not only in finance but also in diet, according to an October study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). Though not many people have heard of the “portfolio diet”—consisting of plant-based foods proven to lower unhealthy cholesterol, such as nuts, oats, berries, and avocados—it is one of the easiest ways to improve long-term cardiovascular health. “The idea was that each of these foods lowers cholesterol quite minimally, but if you make a whole diet based on these different foods, you will see large reductions in [unhealthy] cholesterol,” said Andrea Glenn, an HSPH postdoctoral research fellow in nutrition and the lead author of the study. The more of these foods one eats, the higher the protection—but one need not include them all to reap the diet’s benefits, she said. “Like a business portfolio, you can choose the ones you want.”