When the Taliban resumed power, there were hopes that women might not be as excluded, repressed and abused as they were previously. Those hopes have faded.
As smartphone sales plateau, tech giants are furiously searching for new platforms to conquer. Augmented and virtual reality are the new battlefields. And the rise of giga-everything: how the scale of science drives linguistic innovation.
For biologists, a long-standing question has been why some animals live longer than others. This week a team have attempted to answer this, by measuring the rates that different animal species accumulate mutations. They show that longer-lived animals acquire mutations at a slower rate, which helps to explain why cancer risk does not scale with lifespan.
07:56 Research Highlights
A clinical trial suggests a change to the treatment of a pregnancy ailment, and astronomers identify the largest known structure produced by a single galaxy.
10:43 The war in Ukraine’s effects on global energy
Many European countries are dependent on Russian fossil fuels for energy production. Following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, these countries are looking to wean themselves off these fuels, which could have short- and long-term impacts on emissions and food production.
19:58 A new measurement of a particle’s mass hints at new physics
Last week, a new estimate of the W boson’s mass caused much excitement among physicists. The result suggests that this particle is heavier than theory predicts, a finding that could be the first major breach in the standard model of particle physics. However, measuring W bosons is notoriously tricky, and further work will be needed to confirm the finding.
We assess Moscow’s military strategy amid warnings of a new Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine. Plus, a look ahead to Australia’s federal election, a review of today’s papers and aviation news.
Hundreds of thousands of predominantly young professionals have left Russia since its invasion of Ukraine, an exodus that is denting Russia’s growing tech sector.
WSJ reporter Georgi Kantchev explains who is leaving, why, and what long-term effects their departure could have on the Russian economy and society. Plus, how is TikTok changing children’s brains? Luke Vargas hosts.
Emma Nelson and Stephen Dalziel delve into the Saturday papers. Plus, Guy De Launey on news in the Balkans and our contributing editor Andrew Mueller discusses the week’s stranger stories.
On this week’s show: A new measurement of the W boson could challenge physicists’ standard model, and an abundance of marine RNA viruses.
Staff Writer Adrian Cho joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a new threat to the standard model of particle physics—a heavier than expected measurement of a fundamental particle called the W boson. They chat about how this measurement was taken, and what it means if it is right.
Next, Sarah talks about the microscopic denizens of Earth’s oceans with Ahmed Zayed, a research scientist in the department of microbiology at Ohio State University, Columbus. They talk about findings from a global survey of marine RNA viruses. The results double the number of known RNA viruses, suggesting new classifications will be needed to categorize all this viral diversity.
This week: Quiet as It’s Kept, the 80th edition of the Whitney Biennial, is now open to the public at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
The Art Newspaper’s associate editor Tom Seymour, Americas editor Ben Sutton and staff reporter Gabriella Angeletti gather to discuss it. As the latest incarnation of the show Afro-Atlantic Histories is unveiled at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, we speak to its curator, Kanitra Fletcher, about the gallery’s approach to this complex subject. And the National Gallery in London’s long-planned Raphael blockbuster, postponed due to the pandemic, is finally open, so for this episode’s Work of the Week, we speak to Tom Henry, one of the curators of the show, about the Self-Portrait with Giulio Romano (1519-20), one of the Renaissance master’s final paintings.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious