Stephen Holmes at The Ideas Letter: Today’s disheartening resurgence of authoritarianism, xenophobia, race-baiting, brazen sexism and religious zealotry, not to mention homicidal rampages in the name of ethnic identity, makes rallying to the defense of a beleaguered liberalism in … | Continue reading
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A Kind of Biography All night the language dog gnaws at the meaning bone. Soon the sea begins to question its shuffling from east to west, and the stars their vast, ordinary circuits. So my friend has fled into his father’s fields. He leans against a fence and wonders what the an … | Continue reading
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Sahana Sitaraman in The Scientist: When someone catches a lung infection, be it viral or bacterial, they usually show tell-tale symptoms, such as weakness, breathing difficulties, or brain fog. These indicators signal others to keep a safe distance from the contagious individual. … | Continue reading
by Eric Schenck Now It’s a strange thing when your parents get ready to sell your childhood home. There’s a feeling of excitement at what’s to come. Something good and normal is happening, and after all, home is where you make it. There’s also a feeling of detachment. It doesn’t … | Continue reading
Ari Schulman in The New Atlantis: Shouldn’t charity serve the needs of recipients, not givers? Isn’t it better to do more good than less? Shouldn’t there be some way to measure that? Effective altruism is the philosophy that answers “yes” to all these questions. Put this way, it … | Continue reading
Julian Nowogrodzki in Nature: At least one-quarter of people who have severe brain injuries and cannot respond physically to commands are actually conscious, according to the first international study of its kind1. Although these people could not, say, give a thumbs-up when promp … | Continue reading
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Timo Schaefer in the Los Angeles Review of Books: In 1979, most Latin American countries were ruled by right-wing military dictatorships. The Cuban Revolution was 20 years old, and copycat guerrilla groups had been comprehensively defeated across the region thanks in part to heav … | Continue reading
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Richard Brody at The New Yorker: Gena Rowlands, who died last Wednesday, at the age of ninety-four, is, of all the actresses I’ve ever seen onscreen, the greatest artist. She’s the one whose performances offer the most surprises, the most shocks, the most moment-to-moment inventi … | Continue reading
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Mariana Lenharo in Nature: When Devin Singh was a paediatric resident, he attended to a young child who had gone into cardiac arrest in the emergency department after a prolonged wait to see a doctor. “I remember doing CPR on this patient and feeling that kiddo slip away,” he say … | Continue reading
Ari Schulman at The New Atlantis: But then there are the parts of effective altruism that are just … weird. For many of its adherents, EA is not just an idea but a transformational lifestyle. There is no limit to how much of your time, money, and identity you can give over to it. … | Continue reading
Pito, I say Pito, I say The wine does flow And Pito says, it does flow under the bridge and the barges do flow on it, and the wine does flow and the world flows away Sure, I say that’s how it is and Diane Arbus, I say have you dreamt of her lately Lately… | Continue reading
by Gary Borjesson I came to psychotherapy from philosophy, first starting therapy in my forties while on sabbatical from St. John’s College. I was struck by its transformative power—so struck that I ultimately resigned my tenure and returned to graduate school to train as a thera … | Continue reading
by Eleni Petrakou During this Chinese New Year celebrations, this columnist was very surprised to realize that what dragons were is not really common knowledge. Are you one of those people who don’t know? I’m glad you are here. Already know? A refresher is always pleasant on this … | Continue reading
Ripening elderberries outside my house. Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now. | Continue reading
George Scialabba in The Hedgehog Review: In 1884, William James began his celebrated essay “The Dilemma of Determinism” by begging his readers’ indulgence: “A common opinion prevails that the juice has ages ago been pressed out of the free-will controversy, and that no new champi … | Continue reading
Zoltan Nagy in The Conversation: I’m an engineer who studies and develops smart buildings. My lab created Merlin, which learns how people use energy in their homes and adjust energy controls like thermostats to meet their needs while at the same time minimizing the impact on the … | Continue reading
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Harvey Neptune in Aeon: In late 1949, the West Indian intellectual C L R James sat down in his residence in Compton, California and, in a burst of creative energy, composed what turned out to be a frightfully prophetic analysis of the historical fate of democracy in the United St … | Continue reading
Ohad Reiss-Sorokin at The Hedgehog Review: The actual exchange between Oppenheimer and Einstein was, as it happened, far less cordial than the film’s version. It ended with an exasperated Einstein telling his assistant, “There goes a Narr [fool],” nodding toward the Institute dir … | Continue reading
Miles Osgood at n+1: The show teetered between silliness and “Solennité.” The ongoing reconstruction of Notre Dame inspired a memorable percussive musical score with dancers hanging off the cathedral’s scaffolding, but only before the tribute to Paris’s craftspeople turned to an … | Continue reading
Sara Talpos in Undark: In 2019, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense released a call for research projects to help the military deal with the copious amount of plastic waste generated when troops are sent to work in remote locations or disaster zones. The agency wanted … | Continue reading
Aparna Nathan in The Scientist: The relationship between two cells can be complicated. They can exchange signals, stick to each other, or even compete for resources. However, in 2007, scientists at Harvard Medical School observed another curious phenomenon: cells could exist insi … | Continue reading
In a Neighborhood in Los Angeles I learned Spanish from my grandma mijito don’t cry she’d tell me on the mornings my parents would leave to work at the fish canneries my grandma would chat with chairs sing them old songs dance waltzes with them in the kitchen when she’d say niño … | Continue reading
by Rebecca Baumgartner Several years ago, I trudged through a baking hot evening in July to go to my first-ever tennis lesson, offered by my city’s Parks and Rec department. Against a background of lightning bugs, cicadas, and a lingering heat despite the lateness of the hour, I … | Continue reading
by Derek Neal The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker is a novel about paying attention. After you read a chapter, you, too, begin paying attention to things you’ve never noticed before. On my way to work this morning, gliding down quiet, leafy streets in my 2012 Mazda 3 GS-SKY, I notic … | Continue reading
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Yascha Mounk in his own Substack: So far, we humans have mostly restricted ourselves to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The SETI Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization, has built a variety of instruments designed to detect signs of extraterrest … | Continue reading
Adnan R. Khan in The Walrus: When Frederik Vanmeert stands in front of a Johannes Vermeer painting, the temptation to go close is irresistible. In Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, where he works as a heritage scientist, it’s not hard to satisfy this craving for intimacy; patrons are free … | Continue reading
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Richard D. Wolff in CounterPunch: In the wake of his huge defeat on June 30, 2024, when 80 percent of voters rejected French “centrist” President Emmanuel Macron, he said he understood the French people’s anger. In the UK, Conservative loser Rishi Sunak said the same about the Br … | Continue reading
Seamus Heaney at the Paris Review: Dear Tom, It’s not that I have not been thinking about you. I have, quite a bit. And the thoughts have as ever been tinged with second thoughts: for example, I was sorry after you rang that time in the summer that I had not urged you to come… | Continue reading
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Michael Eisenstein in Nature: An analysis of almost 50,000 brain scans1 has revealed five distinct patterns of brain atrophy associated with ageing and neurodegenerative disease. The analysis has also linked the patterns to lifestyle factors such as smoking and alcohol consumptio … | Continue reading
Travis Jeppesen at Artforum: IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH to be in Venice on a sunny day, it will take your eyes a while to adjust after you enter the Teatro Fondamenta Nuove on the northern bank of Cannaregio. A curtain is lifted, and suddenly you are enshrouded in darkness. It is nea … | Continue reading
A Young Oscar Homolka A Young Oscar Homolka walks up the street, I may be the only one left who remembers the old Oscar Homolka. At the market three Italian women in dress-up black, the older the woman, the higher the heel. Four flights up to Puccini’s birthplace. I climb one, th … | Continue reading
by Jochen Szangolies Modern physics in its full mathematical splendor introduces an array of unfamiliar concepts that daunt the initiate, and often even bewilder the pro (or is that just me?). A part of it is just that it’s a complex topic, and its objects of study are far remove … | Continue reading
by Barry Goldman Robert McDonnell was the Governor of Virginia in 2014 when the federal government indicted him and his wife on bribery charges. A Virginia businessman named Jonnie Williams provided the McDonnells with over $175,000 in “loans, gifts and other benefits.” In exchan … | Continue reading
Sughra Raza. Remains of The Day. Oolloo House, Vermont, August 2024. Digital photograph. “Found in backyards as well as forests across the eastern United States, the flowering dogwood feeds dozens of other fruit-loving bird species, along with foxes, skunks, beavers and black bea … | Continue reading
Stan Carey at Sentence first: I was sad to hear that Edna O’Brien had died. She lived a remarkable life and leaves an amazing body of work: she was, in Eimear McBride’s description, ‘one of the last great lights of the golden age of Irish literature’. The controversy over O’Brien … | Continue reading
Azeem Azhar in Exponential View: Schmidt confessed to revising his AI outlook every six months, a testament to the field’s volatility. He shared a striking example: “Six months ago, I was convinced that the gap [between frontier AI models and the rest] was getting smaller, so I i … | Continue reading
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