Preview: London Review Of Books – Oct 19, 2023
Tag Archives: Reviews
Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 12, 2023
AI’s potential to accelerate drug discovery needs a reality check
Companies say the technology will contribute to faster drug development. Independent verification and clinical trials will determine whether this claim holds up.
Summer storms launch water high into the stratosphere
Thunderstorms can increase the levels of water vapour in the atmosphere, at altitudes as high as 19 km.
How ChatGPT and other AI tools could disrupt scientific publishing
A world of AI-assisted writing and reviewing might transform the nature of the scientific paper.
Politics: The Guardian Weekly – October 13, 2023
The Guardian Weekly (October 13, 2023) – The new issue features Hamas militants’ devastating incursion into Israel from Gaza resulting in thousands of deaths, provoking a declaration of war and upending the fragile diplomacy of the Middle East.
The swirling composite of images on the magazine’s cover this week tries to encapsulate the human chaos and grief of civilians, both in Israel and Gaza, caught in the chaos of war. The central image shows a vast explosion filling the sky above Gaza City, an ominous portent of many violent acts still to come.
As the region faces its worst conflict for 50 years, Bethan McKernan reports from a kibbutz ransacked by militants and finds shocked residents still struggling to process events. Guardian correspondents Harriet Sherwood, Patrick Wintour and Peter Beaumont provide context and analysis, while international affairs commentator Simon Tisdall argues that the ultimate blame lies with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s controversial prime minister.
Ahead of this weekend’s elections in Poland that could give the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party an unprecedented third term in office, Shaun Walker goes on the campaign trail with Donald Tusk whose centre-right Civic Coalition is hoping to reverse the country’s slide away from democratic norms. And Brussels correspondent Lisa O’Carroll reports on the EU’s Granada summit where Hungary’s Viktor Orbán accused fellow leaders of attempting to impose a “diktat” with a proposal on a bloc-wide agreement on migration.
With global temperatures for September described as “gobsmackingly bananas” by leading climatologist Zeke Hausfather, our interview with the president of Cop28 could not be more timely. Sultan Al Jaber explains to environment editor Fiona Harvey how he believes he can square his job as the chief of the United Arab Emirates’ national oil company with leading a global conference focused on net zero carbon emissions.
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Oct 13, 2023
Times Literary Supplement (October13, 2023): The new issue features Deeper Truths – The spiritual quest of the Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse; ‘Woke Wars’ and identity politics; fashion and the Bloomsbury group; Jewish boxers in London; Elsa Morante’s princes and demons and ‘Free Will?’
Preview: Archaeology Magazine – Nov/Dec 2023
Archaeology Magazine (November/December – 2023):
Assyrian Women of Letters
4,000-year-old cuneiform tablets illuminate the personal lives of Mesopotamian businesswomen
By DURRIE BOUSCAREN
Excavations at the ancient Anatolian city of Kanesh in Turkey have revealed a district where merchants from the distant Mesopotamian city of Assur in Iraq lived and worked. Some 23,000 cuneiform tablets, mostly dating from about 1900 to 1840 B.C., have been found in the merchants’ personal archives in Kanesh.
The parents of an Assyrian woman named Zizizi were furious. Like many of their neighbors’ children, their daughter had dutifully wed an Assyrian merchant. Sometime around the year 1860 B.C., she had traveled with him to the faraway Anatolian city of Kanesh in modern-day Turkey, where he traded textiles. But her husband passed away and, instead of returning to her family, Zizizi chose to marry a local.
China’s River of Gold
Excavations in Sichuan Province reveal the lost treasure of an infamous seventeenth-century warlord
Worshipping a Forbidden Goddess
A Roman noblewoman’s devotion to Isis outlasted even an emperor’s ban on foreign cults
Paleolithic Pathfinders
Around 55,000 years ago, a resourceful band of modern humans made a home in southern France
Who Were the Goths?
Investigating the mythic origins of the Roman Empire’s ultimate adversary
Previews: Country Life Magazine – Oct 11, 2023
Country Life Magazine – October11, 2023: The latest issue features the rise of the super cottage, autumn berries and how to win at conkers.
Conkering heroes
Simon Lester swings into the win-at-all-costs world of that old playground chestnut: conkers
Last call for the corncrake
This small and secretive bird is becoming ever-more rare, but there is hope, finds Vicky Liddell
Doing it by the book
Independent bookshops are thriving against the high-street odds. Catriona Gray selects a few of her favourites from the shelf
Interiors
Giles Kime picks 10 blasts from the past that are back in fashion, Eleanor Doughty marvels at Nels Crosthwaite Eyre’s light touch, Bee Osborn hails the rise of the super cottage and Amelia Thorpe visits a resurgent Pimlico Road
Nine centuries of service
In the second of two articles, John Goodall focuses on London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital
Native breeds
The ‘picturesque’ New Forest pony is central to centuries-old grazing rights, finds Kate Green
Colour supplements
Fiery autumn tints catch the eye of Jane Powers in the secluded Cliff House Garden in Co Dublin
We reap what he sowed
Katherine Cole hails campaigner Miles Hadfield, who fought to save a host of historic gardens
Having a gourd time
Pumpkins and squashes have long been an inspiration to chefs and artists, reveals Lia Leendertz
The good stuff
Brown is the colour this season, so it’s chocs away for Hetty Lintell
Science And Technology: Issues Magazine (Fall ’23)
ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE (FALL 2023): The latest issue of @ISSUESinST features Lessons from Ukraine, Quantum Workforce, The Energy Transition, Why Space Debris Flies Through Regulatory Gaps and more…
Blue Dreams
Blue Dreams is an immersive video experience inspired by microbial networks in the deep sea and beyond. Using stunning undersea video footage, abstract imagery, and computer modeling, the work offers a glimpse into the complicated relationships among the planet’s tiniest—yet most vital—living systems.
Why Space Debris Flies Through Regulatory Gaps
MARILYN HARBERT, ASHA BALAKRISHNAN
Orbital debris has been a looming issue for decades, and it’s only getting worse as activities in space increase. With technical expertise and authority over space activities widely distributed across the US government, officials need to determine the appropriate regulations and policies to address how space is changing.
Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Oct 16, 2023
Jake Sullivan’s Trial by Combat
Inside the White House’s battle to keep Ukraine in the fight.
On a Monday afternoon in August, when President Joe Biden was on vacation and the West Wing felt like a ghost town, his national-security adviser, Jake Sullivan, sat down to discuss America’s involvement in the war in Ukraine. Sullivan had agreed to an interview “with trepidation,” as he had told me, but now, in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, steps from the Oval Office, he seemed surprisingly relaxed for a congenital worrier. (“It’s my job to worry,” he once told an interviewer. “So I worry about literally everything.”)
The Crimes Behind the Seafood You Eat
China has invested heavily in an armada of far-flung fishing vessels, in part to extend its global influence. This maritime expansion has come at grave human cost.
By Ian Urbina
In the past few decades, partly in an effort to project its influence abroad, China has dramatically expanded its distant-water fishing fleet. Chinese firms now own or operate terminals in ninety-five foreign ports. China estimates that it has twenty-seven hundred distant-water fishing ships, though this figure does not include vessels in contested waters; public records and satellite imaging suggest that the fleet may be closer to sixty-five hundred ships.
Chicago Exhibitions: ‘Caravaggio In Rome’
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in Rome
Sep 8–Dec 31, 2023
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.
Caravaggio’s followers, known as the Caravaggisti, embraced the stylistic hallmarks of the painter’s intensely naturalistic work. Like their trailblazing idol, they used models from real life, boldly depicting their quirks and flaws in dynamic compositions whose turbulent movement was revealed in dramatic extremes of light and dark. The themes and individual artistic approaches of Caravaggisti often depended on their direct or indirect relationships to Caravaggio—some knew the artist personally, while others knew him only through his work.
Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – October 9, 2023
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BARRON’S MAGAZINE – October 9, 2023 ISSUE:
12 Picks to Play the Future of Healthcare, From Our Roundtable Pros
Weight-loss treatments aren’t the only big deal in medicine. Our 2023 healthcare roundtable explores the best investing opportunities.
Small-Cap Funds Are More Promising Than They Have Been in Years. Buy These.
Small-cap stocks continue to be overlooked. These funds have the edge to reward investors when they finally take off again.Long read
Why Booking Shares Could Rise 41% in a Slowing Travel Market
The travel website has high margins, low overhead, and lots of free cash flow. The current business has deep strengths in Europe and its rolling out new products.4 min read
A European Carbon Tax Is Coming. What It Means for the World.
With the tariff, climate policy is now being written directly into trade rules, forcing major industrial companies to expedite efforts to reduce emissions, shift trade patterns, or pay up.Long read
Revenge Travel Is Dead. What Comes Next.
After two years of putting up with anything to visit must-see destinations, travelers are looking for more bliss, less stress.Long read
Boomers Daily 