NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE – WINTER 2024/2025 ISSUE: The new issue features ‘Our Cyborg Future?’
The new age of the cyborg?
Neurobiologist and journalist Moheb Costandi explores the rapidly-developing world of brain-computer interfaces. For some people, these devices are already transforming lives – but the technology is quickly overtaking the ethics.
A dangerous calculation
Peter Ward unpicks the dark philosophy of the tech billionaires and how it is infiltrating some of our most powerful organisations.
There’s a product for that
A recent film, The Substance, explored the growing pressure on all of us – particularly women – to modify our bodies, not only through make-up and cosmetic procedures but also through digital filters. Clare Chambers, professor of political philosophy at the University of Cambridge, talks to us about the power of resistance and allowing our bodies to be “good enough”.
New life in the veins
Peter Salmon recounts the bizarre history of blood transfusion – and why the super-rich remain fascinated by its possibilities.
Existentialist crises might more commonly be associated with some who seek out religion, rather than with those religions themselves, but that’s where the Church of England has found itself in recent days.
The resignation of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, followed a damning report into the church’s shameful failures over the serial child abuser John Smyth, which detailed even more disturbing details of cover-ups by some senior clergy.
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Spotlight | Trump’s shock-and-awe team A flurry of controversial and extremist picks for Trump’s administration has provoked criticism and made heads spin. David Smith reports from Washington
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Science | The inverse link between cancer and dementia Scientists have long been aware of a curious connection between these common and feared diseases. At last, a clearer picture is emerging, writes Theres Lüthi
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Feature | Kernels of hope During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection, the first of its kind, had to protect it from fire, rodents – and hunger. By Simon Parkin
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Opinion | Seven lessons from a long-serving economics editor From Thatcher to Trump and Brexit, the Guardian’s outgoing economics editor, Larry Elliott, reflects on his 28 years in the role.
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Culture | Faking history Film and TV have a slippery relationship with the truth when it comes to historical epics. Simon Usborne meets the experts whose advice goes unheeded
The Atlantic Magazine – November 20, 2024: The latest issue features ‘How the Ivy League Broke America’ – The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.
Country Life Magazine (November 20, 2024): The latest issue featuresWinston Churchill – The wit and wisdom of the great man…
‘Let us go forward together’
As we approach the 150th anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill’s birthday, Amie Elizabeth White and Octavia Pollock pay homage to the great man, in his own words.
Entertaining His Majesty
In the second of two articles, John Goodall charts the 1560s and 1620s expansion of Apethorpe Palace in Northamptonshire
Landscape of ‘seamless sameness’
England’s heather moorland and its glorious purple swathe is a wonder of the Western world, suggest John Lewis-Stempel
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Do you know a Yonerywander from a Vinvertuperator? Engage your inner Edward Lear as Daniel McKay welcomes you into his wacky world of whimwondery
Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, jelly made of paint
Food, glorious food is fuelling the creativity of modern still-life artists discovers Catriona Gray
Sex, lies and sewing machines
The sewing machine rose to be an emblem of domesticity, but its invention is a story of Saints and Singers. Matthew Dennison follows the thread
Interiors
Raze to the ground or renovate? Has the open-plan layout had its day? Cart shed or garage? Giles Kime considers some key architectural conundrums
Wisley reinvented
John Hoyland is captivated by the spectacular transformation of Piet Oudolf’s double borders at the RHS garden in Surrey
Some like it hot
If you like your chili ‘hotter than the hinges of hell’, Tom Parker Bowles has just the dish for you (and there’s not a bean in sight)
Wooden walls restored
John Goodall lauds a decade-long project to rescue a unique painted church at Ursi, Romania
National Geographic photographers ventured to places far and wide to capture the year’s most fascinating images.
Taking the Plunge
Atka Bay, Antarctica
A young emperor penguin jumps off a 50-foot cliff for its first swim. The species normally breeds on low-lying sea ice, but some colonies have been found on higher and more permanent ice shelves, behavior likely to become increasingly common with climate change. Left by their parents a month earlier, the chicks must fend for themselves and find food by hunting in the sea.