Tag Archives: Reviews

World Economic Forum: Top Stories Of The Week

World Economic Forum – November 18, 2022 stories:

  1. 0:15 Global Population Reaches 8 Billion – That’s 8 times more humans than existed in 1800. Even so, the world’s population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950 due to a declining global fertility rate. Today there are an average of 2.3 births per woman. In 1950 it was 5. The world’s population is projected to peak at 10.4 billion by 2080.
  2. 1:49 The Economic Case for Climate Adaption – Climate adaptation means preparing our ecological, social and economic systems so they can cope with the future impacts of climate change. Heatwaves, storms, wildfires: the costs of climate change are already mounting but so far only 20% of climate finance has gone towards adaptation.
  3. 3:44 French Start Up Blends Wind and Solar Energy – Unéole’s energy system combines a photovoltaic rooftop panel with 2 compact wind turbines, generating 40% more energy than an ordinary rooftop panel. Solar panels work best in strong sunlight but Unéole’s units generate power when it’s overcast or during winter and can turn through the night to ensure a steady flow of power. The turbines are silent, so they don’t disturb building occupants and they’re built from mostly recycled aluminium and steel.
  4. 4:54 Lab Grown Blood Used in World First – UK scientists have transfused lab-grown blood into humans for the first time. It could revolutionize treatment for people with rare blood types, especially those who need regular transfusions. Two people were injected with 1-2 teaspoons of the synthetic blood to see how how their bodies respond. So far, so good – the trial participants are fit and healthy with no reported side effects.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Nov 18, 2022

Image

Science Magazine – November 18, 2022 issue:

Moore’s law: The journey ahead

High-performance electronics will focus on increasing the rate of computation

Tumors can teem with microbes. But what are they doing there?

New study suggests microbiomes can promote cancer by suppressing immune response and seeding metastase

Booming trade in mammoth ivory may be bad news for elephants

Paleontologists are urged to take a stand against a market that may provide cover for continued poaching

Defining the onset of the Anthropocene

Twelve sites are considered for defining the Anthropocene geological epoch

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Nov 17, 2022

Volume 611 Issue 7936

nature – November 17, 2022 issue:

Farming feeds the world. We desperately need to know how to do it better

Interventions designed to improve agricultural practices often lack a solid evidence base. A new initiative could change that.

CRISPR cancer trial success paves the way for personalized treatments

‘Most complicated therapy ever’ tailors bespoke, genome-edited immune cells to attack tumours.

Overhyping hydrogen as a fuel risks endangering net-zero goals

Hydrogen is touted as a wonder fuel for everything from transport to home heating — but greener and more efficient options are often available.

A fortune in gold is buried in electronic waste

US consumers could generate more than one billion pieces of e-waste a year by 2033.

Why older people get less protection from flu vaccines

Immune players called B cells are partly to blame for the decline in vaccine efficacy for people over 65.

Books: New York Review Of Books – Dec 8, 2022

December 8, 2022 issue cover

The New York Review of Books – December 8, 2022:

The Circuitous Sublime

Like most hauntings, Fleur Jaeggy’s books are often quite baroque, but they cast a strange spell that causes everyone to remember them as nothing but austere.

Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy, translated from the Italian by Tim Parks

The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy, translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff

I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy, translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff


Road Maps for the Soul

The Philosophy of Modern Song can be read as a tour journal, refracted through one lonely song after another.

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan


A Peopled Wilderness

We must find new ways to act toward animals in a world dominated everywhere by human power and activity.

‘A Great Democratic Revolution’

Alexis de Tocqueville left France to study the American prison system and returned with the material that would become “Democracy in America.”

The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville by Olivier Zunz


Preview: History Today Magazine – December 2022

December issue

Inside December 2022 issue:

Age of Doubt: Saints and Sceptics

The medieval period was a golden age of saints and miracles, but they were met with a healthy dose of scepticism.

‘A Baptism of Blood’

Fighting for the Union in the US Civil War, Welsh soldiers discovered that the cost of assimilation was the loss of their native language.

Renaissance Wonder Women

To Renaissance audiences, the mythical Amazons were exotic, mysterious and revealed hidden truths about their own society.

Architecture In China: Cloudscape Of Haikou

DezeenIn the first instalment of Dezeen’s new Concrete Icons series produced in collaboration with Holcim, MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong explains how his firm’s sinuous concrete library in Haikou, China encourages visitors to use their imagination.

Yansong is the first participant in Concrete Icons, a new video series profiling the most iconic contemporary concrete buildings by the world’s leading architects. The video focusses on MAD’s Cloudscape of Haikou, a library with a flowing form cast in white concrete located in a waterside park in Haikou on the island of Hainan.

Completed in 2021, the 1,000-square-metre structure houses a library, cafe, restrooms, showers, a nursery room, and bike storage, and acts as a waystation for visitors to the park. Speaking to Dezeen in an exclusive video interview filmed at MAD’s offices in Beining, Yansong explained how the building is designed to put visitors in a contemplative or imaginative state of mind.

Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=1866618

The Cloudscape of Haikou

MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, has announced the opening of the Cloudscape of Haikou is located on the southern tip of China. A unique urban public and cultural space for citizens and visitors to Haikou, this flowing, sculptural concrete form was named as one of the “most anticipated architecture projects of 2021” by The Times of London.

A prominent port city on the southern tip of China, Haikou was once an important stop on the Maritime Silk Road. With the establishment of the Hainan International Tourism Island and Hainan Free Trade Zone, Haikou’s influence has seen a gradual resurgence in modern times. Meanwhile, Haikou’s government is also enriching the city’s cultural importance, through enhancing the social attributes of the city’s public spaces, and strengthening the connection between the city, humanities, and architecture. The Cloudscape of Haikou is one such culmination of this effort.

The Cloudscape of Haikou is the first of sixteen coastal pavilions commissioned by the Haikou Tourism and Culture Investment Holding Group to rejuvenate the historic port city, with the aim of improving public space along the coastline. Known as “Haikou, Pavilions by the Seaside,” the initiative invited teams of internationally recognized architects, artists, and interdisciplinary professionals to create sixteen landmark public stations.

Preview: New Scientist Magazine – Nov 19, 2022

New Scientist Default Image

New Scientist – November 19, 2022 issue:

What is pain, how does it work and what happens when it goes wrong?

With a growing number of people living with pain, we desperately need to understand it – but we are still unravelling the mysterious mechanisms behind the phenomenon

  • FEATURES – Roger Penrose: “Consciousness must be beyond computable physics”
  • FEATURES – Why emotions can feel so painful – and what it means for painkillers
  • FEATURES – We are only just beginning to understand what causes nociplastic pain

Previews: Times Literary Supplement – Nov 18, 2022

Image

Times Literary Supplement – November 18, 2022 issue of the @TheTLS, featuring Books of the Year; Ferdinand Mount on a second Trump term; @guydammann on opera funding in England; @KieranSetiya on beauty; and Javier Marías’s last column on translation (tr., Margaret Jull Costa) – and more.

Cover Preview: Scientific American – December 2022

December 2022

Scientific American – Inside the December 2022 issue:

How JWST Is Changing Our View of the Universe

The James Webb Space Telescope has sparked a new era in astronomy

JWST’s First Glimpses of Early Galaxies Could Break Cosmology

The James Webb Space Telescope’s first images of the distant universe shocked astronomers. Is the discovery of unimaginably distant galaxies a mirage or a revolution?

How Taking Pictures of ‘Nothing’ Changed Astronomy

Deep-field images of “empty” regions of the sky from JWST and other space telescopes are revealing more of the universe than we ever thought possible

Books: Kirkus Reviews Magazine – Nov 15, 2022

Digital Issue XCVIEW DIGITAL ISSUE

Kirkus Reviews – Our first Best Books issue of the year features the 100 best fiction and 100 best nonfiction titles plus our full Nov. 15 issue.

Best of 2022: Our Favorite Fiction

Best Fiction of 2022: Adriana Herrera

A CARIBBEAN HEIRESS IN PARIS BY ADRIANA HERRERA 

Best Fiction of 2022: Morgan Talty

NIGHT OF THE LIVING REZ BY MORGAN TALTY 

Ranging from grim to tender, these stories reveal the hardships facing a young Native American in contemporary America.