Abbott, Edwin A, and Rosemary Jann (editor), Flatland: A Romance in Many Dimensions, Oxford University Press 2006 Editorial Reviews Amazon.com 'Unless you're a mathematician, the chances of you reading any novels about geometry are probably slender. But if you read only two in your life, these are the ones. Taken together, they form a couple of accessible and charming explanations of geometry and physics for the curious non-mathematician. Flatland, which is also available under separate cover, was published in 1880 and imagines a two-dimensional world inhabited by sentient geometric shapes who think their planar world is all there is. But one Flatlander, a Square, discovers the existence of a third dimension and the limits of his world's assumptions about reality and comes to understand the confusing problem of higher dimensions. The book is also quite a funny satire on society and class distinctions of Victorian England. The further mathematical fantasy, Sphereland, published 60 years later, revisits the world of Flatland in time to explore the mind-bending theories created by Albert Einstein, whose work so completely altered the scientific understanding of space, time, and matter. Among Einstein's many challenges to common sense were the ideas of curved space, an expanding universe and the fact that light does not travel in a straight line. Without use of the mathematical formulae that bar most non-scientists from an understanding of Einstein's theories, Sphereland gives lay readers ways to start comprehending these confusing but fundamental questions of our reality.' 
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Applebaum, Anne, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956, Doubleday 2012 'At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union to its surprise and delight found itself in control of a huge swath of territory in Eastern Europe. Stalin and his secret police set out to convert a dozen radically different countries to Communism, a completely new political and moral system. In Iron Curtain, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes how the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe were created and what daily life was like once they were complete. She draws on newly opened East European archives, interviews, and personal accounts translated for the first time to portray in devastating detail the dilemmas faced by millions of individuals trying to adjust to a way of life that challenged their every belief and took away everything they had accumulated. Today the Soviet Bloc is a lost civilization, one whose cruelty, paranoia, bizarre morality, and strange aesthetics Applebaum captures in the electrifying pages of Iron Curtain.'  
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Aristotle, and (translated by P H Wickstead and F M Cornford), Physics books I-IV, Harvard University Press, William Heinemann 1980 Introduction: 'The title "Physics" is misleading. .. "Lectures on Nature" the alternative title found in editions of the Greek text, is more enlightening. ... The realm of Nature, for Aristotle, includes all things that move and change ... . Thus the ultimate "matter" which, according to Aristotle, underlies all the elementary substances must be studied, in its changes at least, by the Natural Philosopher. And so must the eternal heavenly spheres of the Aristotelean philosophy, insofar as they themselves move of are the cause of motion in the sublunary world.' 
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Brown, Dan, Angels and Demons, Corgi Books 2003 From Publishers Weekly 'Pitting scientific terrorists against the cardinals of Vatican City, this well-plotted if over-the-top thriller is crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama. Robert Langdon, a Harvard specialist on religious symbolism, is called in by a Swiss research lab when Dr. Vetra, the scientist who discovered antimatter, is found murdered with the cryptic word "Illuminati" branded on his chest. These Iluminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat; what the long-defunct association has to do with Dr. Vetra's death is far from clear. Vetra's daughter, Vittoria, makes a frightening discovery: a lethal amount of antimatter, sealed in a vacuum flask that will explode in six hours unless its batteries are recharged, is missing. Almost immediately, the Swiss Guard discover that the flask is hidden beneath Vatican City, where the conclave to elect a new pope has just begun. Vittoria and Langdon rush to recover the canister, but they aren't allowed into the Vatican until it is discovered that the four principal papal candidates are missing. The terrorists who are holding the cardinals call in regarding their pending murders, offering clues tied to ancient Illuminati meeting sites and runes. Meanwhile, it becomes clear that a sinister Vatican entity with messianic delusions is in league with the terrorists. Packing the novel with sinister figures worthy of a Medici, Brown (Digital Fortress) sets an explosive pace as Langdon and Vittoria race through a Michelin-perfect Rome to try to save the cardinals and find the antimatter before it explodes. Though its premises strain credulity, Brown's tale is laced with twists and shocks that keep the reader wired right up to the last revelation.' Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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Feynman, Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinte self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal succesfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynam, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.  
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Hartle, James B., Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity, Addison-Wesley 2003 'The aim of this groundbreaking new book is to bring general relativity into the undergraduate curriculum and make this fundamental theory accessible to all physics majors. Using a "physics first" approach to the subject, renowned relativist James B. Hartle provides a fluent and accessible introduction that uses a minimum of new mathematics and is illustrated with a wealth of exciting applications. The emphasis is on the exciting phenomena of gravitational physics and the growing connection between theory and observation. The Global Positioning System, black holes, X-ray sources, pulsars, quasars, gravitational waves, the Big Bang, and the large scale structure of the universe are used to illustrate the widespread role of how general relativity describes a wealth of everyday and exotic phenomena.' 
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Jisheng, Yang, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012 'An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women and children starved to death during China’s Great Leap Forward in the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as the “three years of natural disaster.” As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang lays the deaths at the feet of China’s totalitarian Communist system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest.' 
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Knox, Ronald, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion, University of Notre Dame Press 1994 Amazon customer review: 'Hard not to be very enthusiastic about this magnum opus of Msgr Ronald Knox. . . . This has been one of my favorite books over the years; read and re-read for the sheer joy of reading! Knox takes us on a marvellous journey through history, unveiling some of the mystical and "enthusiastic" movements, going back to Corinth and Montanism, and some of the "enthusiastic" personalities behind these movements. . . . ' gerard77 
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le Carre, John, The Night Manager, Ballantine Books 1984 Kirkus Reviews 'Le Carr‚ returns to the same subject as his disappointingly episodic The Secret Pilgrim--the fate of espionage in the new world order--but now looks forward instead of backward, showing a not-quite innocent mangled between that new order and the old one, whose course le Carr‚ has so peerlessly chronicled for 30 years. Jonathan Pine, night manager at a Cairo hotel, helps Arab playboy Freddie Hamid's mistress Madame Sophie photocopy papers linking him to arms mogul Richard Roper and, while he's at it, makes an extra copy to send to a friend in the Secret Service--only to find that the leak has gotten back to Freddie and that Jonathan's belated, guilty devotion to Sophie can't protect her from a fatal beating. Six months later, Jonathan, now working in Geneva, meets Roper in person and, vowing revenge, volunteers for Leonard Burr's fledgling government agency as the inside man who can supply actionable details of Roper's next arms- for-drugs deal. With the help of Whitehall mandarin Rex Goodhew, Burr sets up a plausibly shady dossier for Jonathan and stages the kidnapping of Roper's son so that Jonathan can foil the snatch and get invited aboard Roper's yacht. But even as Jonathan, still grieving for Sophie, finds himself attracted to Roper's bedmate Jed Marshall and overriding Burr's orders to stay out of Roper's papers, the boys in Whitehall--divided between independents like Goodhew, who want the old agencies broken up, and his cold-warrior nemesis Geoffrey Darker, who insists on maintaining centralized authority--are squabbling over control of the mission, with dire results for Jonathan, whose most dangerous enemies turn out to be his well-meaning masters back home. Despite the familiarity of the story's outlines, le Carr‚ shows his customary mastery in the details--from Jonathan's self-lacerating momentum to the intricacies of interagency turf wars--and reveals once again why nobody writes espionage fiction with his kind of authority.' 
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McGregor, Richard, The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, Harper 2010 Amazon editorial review: From Publishers Weekly 'McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes--and are highlighted in the Party™s handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has--and has not--met the challenge. ' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. . . . this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity. . . . ' 
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Orwell, George Orwell, and Erich Fromm (Afterword), Thomas Pynchon (Foreword), Nineteen Eighty Four, Plume 2003 'Novel by George Orwell, published in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity. Orwell's warning of the dangers of totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers, and the book's title and many of its coinages, such as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.' -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature 
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Pantsov, Alexander V, and Steven I Levine, Mao: The Real Story, Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (October 2, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1451654472 ISBN-13: 978-1451654479 2012 ' “ China scholars now will have to reassess every element of Mao’s career. . . . More important than Pantsov and Levine’s scholarly chops, however, is that they spin a balanced and utterly compelling story larded with telling and often newly uncovered anecdotes about Mao’s family, wives, comrades, rivals, and victims. The common sense of the authors’ judgments on Mao’s crimes and achievements builds on their insights into Mao’s complex personality (and, yes, sex life). One of the most important China books of recent years and a page-turner, too.” ' Library Journal 
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Peacock, John A, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press 1999 Nature Book Review: ' The intermingling of observational detail and fundamental theory has made cosmology an exceptionally rich, exciting and controversial science. Students in the field — whether observers or particle theorists — are expected to be acquainted with matters ranging from the Supernova Ia distance scale, Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory, scale-free quantum fluctuations during inflation, the galaxy two-point correlation function, particle theory candidates for the dark matter, and the star formation history of the Universe. Several general science books, conference proceedings and specialized monographs have addressed these issues. Peacock's Cosmological Physics ambitiously fills the void for introducing students with a strong undergraduate background in physics to the entire world of current physical cosmology. The majestic sweep of his discussion of this vast terrain is awesome, and is bound to capture the imagination of most students.' Ray Carlberg, Nature 399:322 
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Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...' 
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Zinoviev, Alexander, Homo Sovieticus, Atlantic Monthly 1986 From Publishers Weekly 'Like his creator, the narrator of this unclassifiable work, he himself constructs the lumbering term "novel-denunciation-report-tyrade" is a "Soviet emigre in the West" living in a pension in West Berlin with others of his ilk bearing such tags as the Cynic, the Joker, the Whiner, the Dissident. The slight fictive elements are not significant here; what matters is that an incisive intelligence delivers a blistering denunciation of the Soviet system. Dripping venom, the narrator ranges in systematic fashion through the actions of the communist regime from 1917 to the present, excoriating Soviet history. Seen through the cold eye of the observer, the System is duplicitous, corrupt, inefficient and boring, when it is not simply maddening. This furious, outraged, highly theatrical monologue documenting the emergence of the New Man, Homo sovieticus, will seem a definitive portrait to those familiar with the ways of the Kremlin.' Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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A. Philip Randolph - Wikipedia, A. Philip Randolph - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Asa Philip Randolph (April 15, 1889 – May 16, 1979) was a leader in the African-American civil-rights movement, the American labor movement and socialist political parties. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly Black labor union. In the early civil-rights movement, Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. After the war Randolph pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services.' back

Andrew Griffin, Ceres: Dwarf planet in our solar system is 'rich in oranic matter, annunces NASA, 'A dwarf planet in our solar system is rich in organic matter, a Nasa spacecraft has shown. Ceres is like a "chemical factory" full of the same ingredients that helped create life on Earth, according to scientists. And studying it could reveal how those important processes took place on our own planet.' back

Andrew Grifin, Scientists create matter that filled the universe at its earliest moments, ' By smashing protons and neutrons into each other, the scientists were able to recreate the matter that existed at the very beginnings of the universe, when it was still too hot for atoms to form. . . . "Our experimental result has brought us much closer to answering the question of what is the smallest amount of early universe matter that can exist," said Jamie Nagle from the University of Colorado at Boulder, one of the many researchers who contributed towards the experiment.' back

Archimedean property - Wikipedia, Archimedean property - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In abstract algebra and analysis, the Archimedean property, named after the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse, is a property held by some algebraic structures, such as ordered or normed groups, and fields. Roughly speaking, it is the property of having no infinitely large or infinitely small elements.' back

Azeezah Kanji, The Khashoggi skeletons in America's closet, ' "If other states were to claim the broad-based authority that the United States does, to kill people anywhere, anytime, the result would be chaos," UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston presciently warned in 2010.' back

Binary code - Wikipedia, Binary code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' A binary code represents text, computer processor instructions, or any other data using a two-symbol system. The two-symbol system used is often the binary number system's 0 and 1. The binary code assigns a pattern of binary digits, also known as bits, to each character, instruction, etc. For example, a binary string of eight bits can represent any of 256 possible values and can, therefore, represent a wide variety of different items.' back

Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University, Library and Archives | Hoover Institution, "This Institution supports the Constitution of the United States, its Bill of Rights and its method of representative government. Both our social and economic systems are based on private enterprise from which springs initiative and ingenuity.... Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves.... The overall mission of this Institution is, from its records, to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man's endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life. This Institution is not, and must not be, a mere library. But with these purposes as its goal, the Institution itself must constantly and dynamically point the road to peace, to personal freedom, and to the safeguards of the American system." back

Boson - Wikipedia, Boson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, bosons are particles with an integer spin, as opposed to fermions which have half-integer spin. From a behaviour point of view, fermions are particles that obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics while bosons are particles that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. They may be either elementary, like the photon, or composite, as mesons. All force carrier particles are bosons. They are named after Satyendra Nath Bose. In contrast to fermions, several bosons can occupy the same quantum state. Thus, bosons with the same energy can occupy the same place in space.' back

Buena Vista Social Club (film) - Wikipedia, Buena Vista Social Club (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Buena Vista Social Club is a 1999 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders about the music of Cuba. It is named for a danzón that became the title piece of the album Buena Vista Social Club. The film is an international co-production of Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Cuba.' back

Can You Ever Forgive Me (film) - Wikipedia, Can You Ever Forgive Me (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a 2018 American biographical comedy drama film directed by Marielle Heller and with a screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, based on Lee Israel's 2008 memoir of the same name. It stars Melissa McCarthy as Israel and follows her as she tries to revitalize her failing writing career by forging letters from deceased authors and playwrights.' back

Cold War (2018 film) - Wikipedia, Cold War (2018 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Cold War (Polish: Zimna wojna) is a 2018 Polish historical period drama film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, [3][4] where Pawlikowski won the award for Best Director.[5] It also received the Golden Lions Award at the 43rd Gdynia Film Festival.[6] The film, set during the Cold War in the 1950s, tells the story of a musical director (Tomasz Kot) who discovers a young singer (Joanna Kulig), and follows their subsequent love story over the years. The film is loosely inspired by the lives of Pawlikowski's parents.' back

Differentiable manifold - Wikipedia, Differentiable manifold - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a differentiable manifold is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a linear space to allow one to do calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts, also known as an atlas. One may then apply ideas from calculus while working within the individual charts, since each chart lies within a linear space to which the usual rules of calculus apply. If the charts are suitably compatible (namely, the transition from one chart to another is differentiable), then computations done in one chart are valid in any other differentiable chart. back

Douglas Bock, Australia is still listening to Voyager 2 as NASA confirms the probe is now in interstellar space, ' NASA has confirmed that Voyager 2 has joined its twin to become only the second spacecraft to enter interstellar space – where the Sun’s flow of material and magnetic field no longer affect its surroundings. The slightly faster Voyager 1 entered interstellar space in August 2012. Voyager 2 is about 18 billion kilometres from Earth and still sending back data that are picked up by radio telescopes in Australia.' back

E8 (mathematics) - Wikipedia, E8 (mathematics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, E8 is the name given to a family of closely related structures. In particular, it is the name of some exceptional simple Lie algebras as well as that of the associated simple Lie groups. It is also the name given to the corresponding root system, root lattice, and Weyl/Coxeter group, and to some finite simple Chevalley groups. E8 was formulated between the years of 1888 and 1890 by Wilhelm Killing.' back

(ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia, (ε, δ)-definition of limit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In calculus, the (ε, δ)-definition of limit ("epsilon-delta definition of limit") is a formalization of the notion of limit. It was first given by Bernard Bolzano in 1817. Augustin-Louis Cauchy never gave an (ε, δ) definition of limit in his Cours d'Analyse, but occasionally used ε, δ arguments in proofs. The definitive modern statement was ultimately provided by Karl Weierstrass.' back

Fermion - Wikipedia, Fermion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, fermions are particles with a half-integer spin, such as protons and electrons. They obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics and are named after Enrico Fermi. In the Standard Model there are two types of elementary fermions: quarks and leptons. . . . In contrast to bosons, only one fermion can occupy a quantum state at a given time (they obey the Pauli Exclusion Principle). Thus, if more than one fermion occupies the same place in space, the properties of each fermion (e.g. its spin) must be different from the rest. Therefore fermions are usually related with matter while bosons are related with radiation, though the separation between the two is not clear in quantum physics. back

Folding@home, Home Page, 'Pande lab Stanford University The Pande lab is the founding scientific group of Folding@home. The lab is part of the Departments of Chemistry and of Structural Biology, Stanford University and Stanford University Medical Center, and works on theory and simulations of how proteins, RNA, and nanoscale synthetic polymers fold. We have founded the project, developed methods for using distributed computing to study long timescale dynamics, pushed its application to protein folding, and wrote the clients and server code for the Folding@home project. The members of the group involved with Folding@home are listed on our web page.' back

General covariance - Wikipedia, General covariance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, In theoretical physics, general covariance (also known as diffeomorphism covariance or general invariance) is the invariance of the form of physical laws under arbitrary differentiable coordinate transformations. The essential idea is that coordinates do not exist a priori in nature, but are only artifices used in describing nature, and hence should play no role in the formulation of fundamental physical laws.' back

Gluon - Wikipedia, Gluon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Gluons (glue and the suffix -on) are elementary particles that cause quarks to interact, and are indirectly responsible for the binding of protons and neutrons together in atomic nuclei. In technical terms, they are vector gauge bosons that mediate strong color charge interactions of quarks in quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Unlike the electric charge neutral photon of quantum electrodynamics (QED), gluons themselves carry color charge and therefore participate in the strong interaction in addition to mediating it. The gluon has the ability to do this as it carries the color charge and so interacts with itself, making QCD significantly harder to analyze than QED.' back

Griffe Witte and Brady Dennis, That was awkward &mdash: at world's biggest climate conference, U.S. promotes fossil fuels, ' “We strongly believe that no country should have to sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability,” said Wells Griffith, Trump’s adviser. Mocking laughter echoed through the conference room. A woman yelled, “These false solutions are a joke!” And dozens of people erupted into chants of protest.' back

Hubble's law - Wikipedia, Hubble's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that: Objects observed in deep space—extragalactic space, 10 megaparsecs (Mpc) or more—are found to have a redshift, interpreted as a relative velocity away from Earth; This Doppler shift-measured velocity of various galaxies receding from the Earth is approximately proportional to their distance from the Earth for galaxies up to a few hundred megaparsecs away.' back

Jason Hickel, How Britain stole $45 trillion from India, ' There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India . . . was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik . . . deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938.' back

Jennifer Rankin, Group led by Thomas Piketty present plan for 'a fairer Europe', ' A group of progressive Europeans led by the economist and author Thomas Piketty has drawn up a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe to address the division, disenchantment, inequality and rightwing populism sweeping the continent. The plan, crafted by more than 50 economists, historians and former politicians from half a dozen countries, includes huge levies on multinationals, millionaires and carbon emissions to generate funds to tackle the most urgent issues of the day, including poverty, migration, climate change and the EU’s so-called democratic deficit. back

Jonathan Watts, Scientists identify vast undergound ecosystem containing billions of micro-organisms, ' Researchers at the Deep Carbon Observatory say the diversity of underworld species bears comparison to the Amazon or the Galápagos Islands, but unlike those places the environment is still largely pristine because people have yet to probe most of the subsurface. . . . The team combines 1,200 scientists from 52 countries in disciplines ranging from geology and microbiology to chemistry and physics. A year before the conclusion of their 10-year study, they will present an amalgamation of findings to date before the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting opens this week.' back

Josh Gabbatiss, 'Dracula ant' jaws snapping shut is fastest movement in animal kingdom, study finds, 'The jaws of so-called “Dracula ants” make the fastest known movements in the animal kingdom, according to new research. At over 200mph, these appendages outstrip previous competitors for the title, such as mantis shrimps, which are known for their lightning fast motions. Researchers think these insects use their rapidly accelerating jaws to smash into potential prey, stunning them so they can be brought back to the nest and fed to the ants’ larvae.' back

Mahatma Gandhi, Young India 1919-1931In thirteen Volumes, Volume 2 1919-1920, Publisher's Note: Young India, the weekly Ghandi wrote for, edited and publishes, holds a promin ent place among Gandhi's enormous writingd. It also enjoys great significance in the history of India's epic struggle for independence. Consequently there has been a constant demand from research workers and scholars for old issues of Young India. We too have long felt that we should satisfy this demand and that we could do so if we reprinted the old issues.' back

Margaret Sullivan, A top cardinal's sex-abuse convistionis huge news in Australia. But the media can't report it there., ' A front-page editorial in the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph is challenging the suppression order, calling it “an archaic curb on freedom of the press in the current digitally connected world.” And, the editors said, “We’ve taken steps to fight the ban.” They’re clearly right to push back, and their efforts deserve the support of press-rights advocates everywhere.' back

Marisa Iati, Southern Baptist Convention's flagship semnary detais its raist, slave-owning past in stark report, ' More than two decades after the Southern Baptist Convention — the country’s second-largest faith group — apologized to African Americans for its active defense of slavery in the 1800s, its flagship seminary on Wednesday released a stark report further delineating its ties to institutionalized racism. The year-long study by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary found that all four founding faculty members owned slaves and “were deeply complicit in the defense of slavery,” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the seminary, wrote in his introduction to the 72-page report he commissioned.' back

Nearer, My God, to Thee - Wikipedia, Nearer, My God, to Thee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a 19th century Christian hymn by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19,[1] the story of Jacob's dream. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."' back

Peter Greste, Four journalists, one newspaper: Time Magazine's Person of the Year recognises the global assault on journalism, ' Collectively calling them “The Guardians”, Time has awarded the accolade to the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa who edits the Rappler news website, two young Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo currently serving seven-year sentences for exposing a massacre in Myanmar, and the staff of The Capital Gazette newspaper in the American town of Annapolis, Maryland, who continued publishing after five of their colleagues were gunned down in an attack in June.' back

Pigovian tax - Wikipedia, Pigovian tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A Pigovian tax (also spelled Pigouvian tax) is a tax applied to a market activity that generates negative externalities. The tax is intended to correct the market outcome. In the presence of negative externalities, the social cost of a market activity is not covered by the private cost of the activity. In such a case, the market outcome is not efficient and may lead to over-consumption of the product. A Pigovian tax equal to the negative externality is thought to correct the market outcome back to efficiency.' back

Quark - Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark, the free encyclopedia, 'Quarks . . . are a type of elementary particle and major constituents of matter. They combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most well-known of which are protons and neutrons. They are the only particles in the Standard Model to experience the strong force, and thereby the only particles to experience all four fundamental forces, which are also known as fundamental interactions.' back

Reality-based community - Wikipedia, Reality-based community - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush: The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' back

Ross Gittins, The experts told us not to worry - but they were wrong, ' If you’ve always doubted the sense of privatising government-owned businesses, vindication is now flowing thick and faster. In many – but not all - cases it’s turned out to be bad idea. One that’s costing consumers a pretty penny. Unscrambling the egg, however, is proving a frustrating and painful process. Many people feared that if private businesses were allowed to buy government businesses, the first thing they’d do would be to jack up their prices. Politicians and supposed experts told them not to worry. Sorry, experts wrong, doubting punters right.' back

Sacha Molitorisz and Derek Wilding, Digital platforms. Why the ACCC's proposal for Google and Facebook matter big time, 'Many thorny questions remain, but one point is clear: the current regime that oversees digital platforms is woefully inadequate. Right now, as the ACCC notes, digital platforms are largely unregulated. New ways of thinking are needed. A mix of old laws (or no laws) and new media spells trouble.' back

Sandra E. Garcia, Women in Rare Company Accept Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, 'Dr. Strickland, an associate professor of physics at the University of Waterloo in Canada, became one of only three women to win a Nobel Prize in Physics. She was awarded the honor for her innovative work on high-intensity laser pulses, and shared in the award with two male scientists. In the chemistry category, Frances H. Arnold, an American professor of chemical engineering, bioengineering and biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, became only the fifth woman to be awarded the prize. She received the honor for her work conducting the directed evolution of enzymes, proteins that catalyze chemical reactions, and also shared in the prize with two male scientists. back

Shaun Adams, Michael Westaway and Richard Martin, Poor health in Aboriginal children after European colonisation revealed in their skeletal remains, ' The poor health conditions of eight young Aboriginal people who died around the time of early European colonisation have been revealed in their skeletal remains, according to a new study. The bones provide evidence of the displacement of Indigenous Australians from their traditional lands as a result of European colonisation. We view this as an opportunity to undertake “truth-telling” of our colonial history, as outlined in the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart.' back

The Editors, Commonweal, Lethal Hypocrisy, back

The Power of the Powerless - Wikipedia, The Power of the Powerless - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Power of the Powerless (Czech: Moc bezmocných) is an expansive political essay written in October 1978 by the Czech dramatist, political dissident and later politician, Václav Havel. The essay dissects the nature of the communist regime of the time, life within such a regime and how by their very nature such regimes can create dissidents of ordinary citizens. The essay goes on to discuss ideas and possible actions by loose communities of individuals linked by a common cause, such as Charter 77. Officially suppressed, the essay was circulated in samizdat form and translated into multiple languages. It became a manifesto for dissent in Czechoslovakia, Poland and other communist regimes.' back

Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless, 'A SPECTRE is haunting Eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called "dissent" This secter has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting. It was born at a time when this system, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the unadulterated, brutal, and arbitrary application of power, eliminating all expressions of nonconformity. What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformity to be implemented within its official structures.' back