Tag Archives: Reviews

Previews: The Economist Magazine – March 25, 2023

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The Economist – April 1, 2023 issue:

Why the China-US contest is entering a new and more dangerous phase

Chinese officials rage at what they see as American bullying

You may have hoped that when China reopened and face-to-face contact resumed between politicians, diplomats and businesspeople, Sino-American tensions would ease in a flurry of dinners, summits and small talk. But the atmosphere in Beijing just now reveals that the world’s most important relationship has become more embittered and hostile than ever.

How to fix the global rice crisis

Women plant rice saplings at a paddy field in Nagaon District of Assam ,India on February 28,2022. (Photo by Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The world’s most important crop is fuelling climate change and diabetes

The green revolution was one of the greatest feats of human ingenuity. By promoting higher-yielding varieties of wheat and, especially, rice, plant-breeders in India, Mexico and the Philippines helped China emerge from a famine and India avoid one. From 1965 to 1995 Asia’s rice yields doubled and its poverty almost halved, even as its population soared.

Israel should not squander the opportunity for meaningful constitutional talks

Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan near his residencet in Jerusalem, Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

The government’s retreat has pulled Israel back from the brink. But its people remain deeply divided

Israel’s citizens have won a rare victory after marching, week after week, to defend judicial independence and the character of their democracy. On March 27th they forced their prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to suspend his plan to rein in the courts. Yet, although the crisis has abated, it has not passed.

Exhibition Tours: ‘Mirror Mirror – Reflections On Design At Chatsworth’

Dezeen (March 30, 2023) – An exhibition at Chatsworth House including designers including Michael Anastassiades, Faye Toogood and Formafantasma, features in this video produced by Dezeen for the stately home.

Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth

18 March 2023–1 October 2023

Called Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth, the exhibition brings together a collection of furniture and objects displayed throughout and responding to Chatsworth House and its gardens. In total, 16 international designers and artists created pieces that respond to the interiors of the building.

Some responded by sourcing materials from the property itself, while others focussed on themes and ideas taken from decorations within the interiors.

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Research Preview: Nature Magazine – March 30, 2023

Volume 615 Issue 7954

nature Magazine – March 30, 2023 issue: Medieval people on the Swahili coast of East Africa were among the first sub-Saharan people to practise Islam. David Reich, Chapurukha Kusimba and colleagues sequenced DNA from 80 individuals buried in six medieval and early modern coastal Swahili stone towns, dating between 1250 and 1800. Their analysis shows that African women and Asian men began mixing along the East African coast before the year 1000, and that the earliest Asian migrants were of largely Persian origin. 

A gem of a material could provide a shield for spacecraft

Material that includes carbon with the same structure as diamond could be used to protect satellites from space radiation.

It’s bad! Awful! Negative headlines draw more readers

People scrolling online news are 1% less likely to click on an article for each positive word in its title.

GPT-4 is here: what scientists think

Researchers are excited about the AI — but many are frustrated that its underlying engineering is cloaked in secrecy.

Research: New Scientist Magazine – April 1, 2023

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New Scientist – April 1, 2023 issue:

Cancer mystery as cases rise among younger people around the world

A scanning electron micrograph of cancer cells in the intestine

The number of people under 50 with cancer is increasing in many countries and for many different tumour types. Why this is occurring isn’t entirely clear, but it may be due to some aspects of modern life

Banishing wrinkles could boost healthy ageing – so who pays the bill?

A middle-aged, blue-eyed, Caucasian person's eye looks to the side while smiling with wrinkled skin.

Research suggesting that wrinkles could be a driver of ageing means we need to rethink the beauty industry – and who pays for it

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – March 31, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (March 31, 2023) – This week sees an important moment in the history of the Guardian with the launch of Cotton Capital, a series revealing the links between the 19th-century Manchester founders of the newspaper, the transatlantic cotton industry and the enslaved labour upon which the trade was built.

In France, national protests against the proposed increase to the pension age have become so inflamed that a state visit by Britain’s King Charles had to be postponed. Kim Willsher reports on a wave of anger and how women are at the forefront of the demonstrations.

As if life wasn’t pressurised enough already for top-level football referees, the advent of video assistant technology only seems to have made the job even harder than ever, leading to a slew of controversial decisions. From hotel breakfasts to being holed up in front of TV monitors, William Ralston goes behind the scenes with the men and women in black.

On the Culture pages, there’s also a great interview with the indie supergroup Boygenius, whose band members Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker talk to Laura Barton about songwriting, friendship and group therapy.

Art Views: ‘Figures’ In Roy Lichtenstein’s Paintings

Sotheby’s (March 29, 2023) – In 1962, the late legendary Italian-American art dealer Leo Castelli hosted Roy Lichtenstein’s first solo exhibition at his eponymous gallery in New York City, and subsequently worked with the artist throughout his life.

In this Expert Voices, art historian and Director of Leo Castelli Gallery, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli shares her interpretation of Figures, recalling her memories working with her husband and Lichtenstein whom she felt was a modest and dedicated artist, and among those that changed the path of American art in the postwar period.

A key figure in the Pop art movement and beyond, Roy Lichtenstein  (1923–1997) grounded his profoundly inventive career in imitation—beginning by borrowing images from comic books and advertisements in the early 1960s, and eventually encompassing those of everyday objects, artistic styles, and art history itself. Referring to Lichtenstein’s equalizing treatment of the subjects he chose for his art, Richard Hamilton, a fellow Pop artist, wrote in 1968: “Parthenon, Picasso or Polynesian maiden are reduced to the same kind of cliché by the syntax of the print: reproducing a Lichtenstein is like throwing a fish back into water.”

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Design 2023 : ‘LYX HOME’ Mobile Home Concept

LYX Arkitekter (March 29, 2023) – Because LYX Arkitekter is the pioneer in finding a unique architectural solution that combines luxury, simplicity of design, and another creative feature, the brand new LYX home represents the dream of every person on this earth to have his own home and to locate it wherever they want. Thus, the company came up with the house concept which was originally inspired from a container box, but gradually evolved by smoothing the edges. 

The house is originally made from carbon fiber because of its ecological effect being better than metal, and it gives an increasingly feasible transport, it can be also combined with tesla truck for instance could make a revolutionary detour to embrace nature again and can significantly reduce the global warming.

The home dimensions in closed mode is (2.7×11.6 m) which is almost the same size if 40 feet container box, the approximate area of the home is closed mode is 32 sq.m, while it reach up to 42 sq.m in the open mode. The interior design is completely different from the ordinary motor home, it consists basically from cutouts, living room, kitchen, washing room, little dining space, and extendable bed room, with an over hanged bed all necessary equipment are concealed in the rear side of the house.

But what mostly distinguish LYX home, is the kinetic feature which allows the owner to optimize the space of their home, in addition to a remotely glass wall and they are switchable to give full privacy or full view whenever desired. For sure if you are going to live in a house it should have a power source, LYX has electrified the new home with different sources of electricity, First, it can be connected to the grid, or power supply point when it is camping.

Second, it has enough number of rechargeable batteries which can be recharged during camping or even when driving by using advanced dynamos. Third, PV solar panels on the roof. which is interactive and adjustable to fit with the best sun angle during camping mode. And it can also recharge the batteries.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement-March 31, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS (March 31, 2023) – This week’s @TheTLS features @Skye_Cleary on the Good Life; @David_Goodhart on the Tories post-Brexit; @PeterKGeoghegan on the UK’s finances; @DrCLaoutaris on Shakespeare’s lodger; @KatyaTaylor on L. M. Montgomery; @MirandaFrance1 on Javier Marías’s final novel – and more.

Art: ‘Near East to Far West: Fictions of French and American Colonialism’

gallery view of Near East to Far West with wall text and two paintings
Left to right: Gerald Cassidy, Cui Bono?, about 1911. Collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art: Gift of Gerald Cassidy, 1915 (282.23P). Gerald Cassidy, Midday Sun, North Africa, 1920s.

Denver Art Museum (March 27, 2023): Artworks in Near East to Far West: Fictions of French and American Colonialism (through May 29) present a range of representations from sympathetic to stereotyped. Indeed, racialized stereotypes such as the “Noble Savage” and odalisque (a woman in a female-only domestic space, or harem, who is often overly sexualized in European art) circulated throughout French Orientalism and western American art.

Acknowledging the ongoing harm of such representations, we knew that we needed to make space for diverse perspectives: essentially, to make room for the voices too often repressed or ignored in the artwork.

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