Thought

Andy Burnham: what has made the king of the north so popular?

As mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham has had policy hits – but has also struggled with thorny issues.

Introspection is an illusion created by the brain: Our inner narrator makes it all up

Nick Chater in iai: For millennia, people have tried not merely to look outward at the external world, but to turn inward and examine the workings of their own minds—as if there we…

Lipoedema: the painful condition too often dismissed as obesity

Lipoedema affects how fat is stored in the body and can cause pain, bruising and reduced mobility.

How a super El Niño could trigger global famine

Climate and geopolitical shocks – from El Niño, global heating or wars – hit a food system which already magnifies environmental and social vulnerabilities.

Indie sleaze: a brief fashion history, from messy rebellion to mainstream revival

The style was worn by well known models such as Kate Moss and it girl Alexa Chung.

Who moves away when climate change hits? The hidden household politics of migration

Decisions to migrate in response to climate stress are rarely personal choices and there’s such a huge diversity of household migration patterns.

Peter Doig: Painting

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After the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands more kindergarteners faced developmental challenges

An increase in the number of kindergarten children with special needs since the pandemic means more children will require specialized assistance and accommodation in later grades.

Formula 1 racing shows the hard part of reaching net-zero carbon emissions isn’t the engineering

Many Formula 1 innovations have made their way from the racetrack to regular roads. But technological improvements can only go so far toward limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

New SNAP rules requiring that benefits be used at stores selling healthier food could backfire

Many convenience stores, corner markets, bodegas and other small stores will have to make changes if they want to continue to accept SNAP benefits.

How a shifting Nile landscape shaped the rise of the ancient empire of Kush in Sudan

The ancient Kush city of Jebel Barkal rose up in the Nile River Valley starting around 2000 BCE. New research dug deep to learn more about what this landscape was like over the pas…

AI interviewers can’t connect with people the way human researchers can – they can produce only data, not meaning

Anthropic developed an AI interviewer it claims can help social scientists conduct research at scale. But AI models lack the human qualities that make qualitative research unique.

The Shabby Curate and the Imagiste

Charles Martin at The Hudson Review: The first part of my title comes from, and refers to, W. H. Auden, who once said, “When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like…

Wallace Shawn’s Moth Days

George Prochnik at the Paris Review: On the face of it, Moth Days is probably Shawn’s most straightforward domestic drama. In the three-hour play, a man and woman fall in love when…

Nisht geshtoygn un nisht gefloygn

by Rafaël Newman Amid the present surfeit of geopolitical obscenities, one incident is distinguished—by the absurdity of its moral aesthetics. On April 20 this year, the New York T…

Oh Well: On Nihilism

by Marie Snyder “When asked about a ‘major cyberattack’ from China, the president shrugged with indifference. ‘It is what it is.’ … Three days earlier, the president described Chin…

Perceptions

David Hammons. Untitled, Ca. 1990. Metal coat rack, rubber, plastic bags, tin can and found hat More here and here. Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.

Talk as much as you like about human rights, nothing will change until the architecture of global finance is reformed

Attiya Waris at Aeon: You cannot protect the right to healthcare without funding hospitals. You cannot guarantee the right to education without paying teachers. You cannot deliver …

See 15 Images That Won the German Society for Nature Photography’s Annual Contest

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Occasional paper: St. Anthony’s Turnip

Mostly I leave Sunday photography to our colleague, the estimable Chris Bertram. Still, this Sunday I was walking the dog in the hills above my town. (“My town” being a modest comm…

Suno’s Mikey Shulman: Everyone Can Make Music Now

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Sunday photoblogging: Canigou with cherries (2)

The text is not the product

Academics, especially in the humanities, produce texts, and they teach students to produce text. This is a standard assumption, often taken for granted, and maybe not too surprisin…

From The People’s Bank to the Banker’s Bank

Last week Australia’s central bank (Reserve Bank of Australia, RBA) raised interest rates. Again. Political economists have been talking for decades about the RBA’s tendency to red…

Sunday photoblogging: Pézenas, maison consulaire

Sunday photoblogging: Canigou and cherry trees

Occasional paper: Blue Angels, Devil Hands

That’s the actual name of the paper. Isn’t that great? Here’s a prologue: a post I wrote a while back about the Portuguese Man-o’-War. (It’s kind of long — I was new to CT back the…

Sunday photoblogging: l’Abbaye de Valmagne

On Reinforcing Cynicism in the Academy

“I admire the many federal prosecutors across the country who have chosen to resign rather than carry out illegal or immoral orders. To my knowledge, no department head, dean, or o…

Occasional paper: Inconstant moon

I said a while back that nobody’s going to Mars any time soon. Which is true. But that doesn’t mean Mars isn’t interesting! Mars is very interesting. So today’s paper is about Mars…