Monocle 24 checks in on Switzerland’s plans to further ease coronavirus restrictions and ask whether the country is setting an example that others should follow.Plus: the weekend’s newspapers and top stories. From Milan: Salone highlights, interviews and a daily running guide.
Rick Steves is a travel evangelist, always in motion, traversing faraway places and inspiring others to do the same. So when the world shuts down, and Rick Steves can no longer travel, then who is Rick Steves?
Sam Anderson, a writer for The Times Magazine, profiled the travel guru last year. Today, Sam asks Rick how he’s been expanding his horizons from home. Dreaming of travel, we learn, is nearly as sweet as the real thing.
Staff Writer Jon Cohen joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about using monoclonal antibodies to treat or prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2. Many companies and researchers are rushing to design and test this type of treatment, which proved effective in combating Ebola last year. See all of our News coverage of the pandemic here, and all of our Research and Editorials here. And Karen Holl, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins Sarah to discuss the proper planning of tree-planting campaigns. It turns out that just putting a tree in the ground is not enough to stop climate change and reforest the planet.
This week, a new way to study elusive subatomic particles – pions, and the story of Galileo remains relevant in a time of modern science denialism.In this episode:
00:46 Probing pions
Pions are incredibly unstable and difficult-to-study subatomic particles. Now researchers have come up with a clever way to examine them – by sticking them into helium atoms. Research Article: Hori et al.
08:28 Research Highlights
A colourful way to cool buildings, and the rapid expansion of cities. Research Highlight: A rainbow of layered paints could help buildings to keep their cool; Research Highlight: Urban sprawl overspreads Earth at an unprecedented speed
10:46 The life of Galileo
A new biography of Galileo Galilei examines some of the myths about his life and draws parallels with problems facing scientists today. Books and Arts: Galileo’s story is always relevant
16:42 Pick of the Briefing
We pick our highlights from the Nature Briefing, including botanical graffiti, and rock-eating bacteria. The Guardian: ‘Not just weeds’: how rebel botanists are using graffiti to name forgotten flora; Scientific American: Scientists Waited Two and a Half Years to See whether Bacteria Can Eat Rock
In this two-part series, six US museum directors discuss the pandemic and its repercussions for their institutions. These candid, insightful conversations address wide-ranging topics, from the logistical challenges of when to close and how to reopen to philosophical exchanges about the role of museums in society.
This first episode features Max Hollein of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Kaywin Feldman of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and James Rondeau of the Art Institute of Chicago.
This second episode features Matthew Teitelbaum of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ann Philbin of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and Timothy Potts of the J. Paul Getty Museum.
The latest episode of the Octavian Report – Rostrum coronavirus crisis podcast features Wayne Rebhorn. The latest episode of our coronavirus crisis podcast features Wayne Rebhorn of the University of Texas at Austin. Wayne is the author of an acclaimed translation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, perhaps the paradigmatic work of pandemic literature.
The Decameron is set among a group of witty, earthy social isolators who have fled the plague ravaging Florence. We spoke with Wayne about Boccaccio and his most famous work, the conditions that helped birth it, and what we can learn from them in our current situation.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, a 90% economy—life after lockdowns will be hard in ways that are difficult to imagine today. Also, a bust-up in Brasilia (10:10), and solitude is both a blessing and a curse (17:25).
Humphrey Hawksley is an author, commentator and broadcasters. His work as a BBC foreign correspondent took him all over the world, giving him a global perspective that informs his writing. His new book, ‘Man on Edge’, puts the reader at the centre of a geopolitical crisis in Moscow.
Humphrey Hawksley is an English journalist and author who has been a foreign correspondent for the BBC since the early 1980s.
This week ‘Monocle 24 – The Stack’ speaks with Amy Astley, editor in chief of ‘Architectural Digest’. 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the magazine in 1920.Amy Astley (born June 5, 1969) is the editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest as of May 2016. She was editor of Teen Vogue, which launched in January 2003. She was named to edit the new magazine in June 2002 by Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue and editorial director of Teen Vogue.
Staff Writer Jocelyn Kaiser joins Sarah to talk about a recent Science paper describing the results of a large study on a blood test for multiple types of cancer. The trial’s results suggest such a blood test combined with follow-up scans may help detect cancers early, but there is a danger of too many false positives. And postdoctoral researcher Timo Reinhold of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research joins Sarah to talk about his paper on how the Sun is a lot less variable in its magnetic activity compared with similar stars—what does it mean that our Sun is a little bit boring?
Boomers Daily 