Jeremy Saltz, art crtic for New York Magazine, on how to be an artist.
Some of Earth’s first animals are spilling out of Canadian rocks. Summer 2017 another one of my dreams came true when I visited the original Burgess Shale at the Walcott Quarry. I also visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum, which brought out the little boy in me. I'd never seen so many dinosaur fossils before.
Spider silk is five times stronger than steel—now, scientists know why.
Humpback whale songs undergo a ‘cultural revolution’ every few years.
The insect apocalypse is real. And yes, I too remember that when I was a child the windscreen of my father's car used to be full of crushed insects.
The prophet of envy. On the life and work of René Girard.
Opioid Nation. Review of four new books on the US opioid crisis. There are now to different crises: a prescription drugs crisis and a street drugs crisis.
Review of Debussy: A Painter in Sound by Stephen Walsh.
Mark Galeotti on (Mis)Understanding Russia’s two ‘hybrid wars’. I found this essay quite illuminating.
Choc is everywhere (and not just in New York). “There’s no denying that Choc has become a typographical shorthand for Asian-themed restaurants. Imagine a sushi bar adorned in Helvetica, and it may not seem as authentic, or as appetizing.”
Global warming will happen faster than we think as three trends will combine to hasten it, warn Yangyang Xu, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor.