Alter (2004), Robert, The Five Books of Moses, W W Norton 2004 Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship and translation, Robert Alter has equipped us to read the Hebrew Bible as a powerful cohesive work of literature. In this landmark work, Alter's masterly translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books of Moses. 
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Sorkin (2025), Andrew Ross, 1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street, Allen Lane 2025 ' In 1929, the world watched in shock as the unstoppable Wall Street bull market went into a freefall, wiping out fortunes and igniting a depression that would reshape a generation. But behind the flashing ticker tapes and panicked traders, another drama unfolded-one of visionaries and fraudsters, titans and dreamers, euphoria and ruin. <
With unparalleled access to historical records and newly uncovered documents, New York Times bestselling author Andrew Ross Sorkin takes readers inside the chaos of the crash, behind the scenes of a raging battle between Wall Street and Washington and the larger-than-life characters whose ambition and naivety in an endless boom led to wreckage. The dizzying highs and brutal lows of this era eerily mirror today's world-where markets soar, political tensions mount, and the fight over financial influence plays out once again.' 
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Alex Lo (2025_10_12), As I see it | How Fukuyama goes from the end of history to the end of the West, ' It must have been quite an intellectual or spiritual comedown going from “the end of history” to “the decline of Western civilisation”.
For a political writer who first made his name by claiming the final historical triumph of Western liberal democracy and free-market capitalism over all other economic and political systems, the decline of his own society – à la Oswald Spengler, who wrote The Decline of the West – seems to have occupied Francis Fukuyama greatly of late.[. . .]
“When historians 50 or 100 years from now investigate how and why Western civilization collapsed, they would point to Silvio Berlusconi as the chief villain,” he wrote.
“Well, guess what, we now have our own home-grown American oligarch in the Berlusconi mold: Elon Musk.”
First, you amass great wealth and then gain political power by buying up and controlling the media industry, for both legacy mass media and social media.
For Fukuyama, Berlusconi “was the inventor of the modern form of oligarchy, in which a rich individual uses his money to buy his way into political office through the purchase of media properties, and then uses his political office to protect his business interests”. [. . .]
Now I think there is a practical solution, though Fukuyama will no doubt deride my exploitation of his criticism to advocate for the Chinese ruling model, which is similar to Thomas Hobbes’ notion of government in the Western political tradition.
That is to say, you need an overriding authority to limit the power, wealth and influence of would-be plutocrats, and if need be, forcibly redistribute those elements more equally across society.
That, I submit to you, is the real reason mainland Chinese and Hong Kong authorities must take down any aspiring Chinese Murdoch, Musk, Berlusconi, Ellison or some such combination thereof.' back

Andrew Ross Sorkin (2025_10_14), The Lesson of 1929, ' Debt is the almost singular through line behind every major financial crisis. It’s a powerfully optimistic force. If we envision the future as a land of ever‑expanding opportunity and affluence, why shouldn’t we marshal some of those resources for use today? That’s what debt does. It draws the wealth of tomorrow into the present.
Problems arise when we get greedy and take too much. Nobody knows for sure where the line is—or what to do when we discover that we’ve gone past it. At that point, panic is the natural reaction. The future suddenly grows so small and dark that there isn’t enough optimism left to draw from. We all love a good story, a concise explanation of how the world works. We all love an easy buck. Temptation has driven human folly for centuries, whether the serpent in the Garden of Eden or the market manias of cryptocurrency or artificial intelligence. Each wave seduces us into thinking that we’ve learned from history and, this time, we can’t be fooled.
Then it happens again, just as it happened in 1929.' back

Archaea - Wikipedia, Archaea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Archaea . . . constitute a domain and kingdom of single-celled microorganisms. These microbes . . . are prokaryotes, meaning they have no cell nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles in their cells. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this classification is outdated. Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from the other two domains of life, Bacteria and Eukaryota.' back

Avinash Kumar Singh, The Kingdom of Krishna, Dwarka, a land of legend, is one of the prominent pilgrimage sites in Hinduism. It holds historical and mythological significance as the home of Lord Krishna. back

Avinash Kumar Singh (2020), Khumb: Among the Seekers, Showcases the Kumbh Mela in India and shines a light on the many elements, both human and technical, that create this unique experience. back

Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Among hundreds of fixed-point theorems] Brouwer's is particularly well known, due in part to its use across numerous fields of mathematics. In its original field, this result is one of the key theorems characterizing the topology of Euclidean spaces, along with the Jordan curve theorem, the hairy ball theorem, the invariance of dimension and the Borsuk–Ulam theorem. This gives it a place among the fundamental theorems of topology.' back

Chopin Competition, Official website of the 19th International Frederyk Chopin Piano Competition 2-23 October 2025, ' The beginnings of the International Chopin Competition go back to 1925, when the idea was first proposed by Jerzy Żurawlew, a Polish pianist. It was a novel and surprising concept at the time. As Żurawlew remembered in later years, ‘young people at that time, not long after the end of the Great War, were taking a keen interest in sports. They were dyed-in- -the-wool realists in their outlook on life. I would often hear that Chopin was excessively romantic, that he enervated the soul and weakened the psyche. Some went so far as to discourage the inclusion of Chopin as required repertoire in music schools. All that showed a fundamental lack of understanding, which I found very painful… As I watched young people’s enthusiasm for sporting achievement, I finally hit upon a solution: a competition! Here was a format to bring tangible advantages to young performers of Chopin in the form of monetary prizes and an international performing career.’ back

Christo Atanasov Kostov (2025_10_14), Russia’s ‘permanent test’ is pushing Europe to the brink of war – here’s what Moscow actually wants, ' The scenes have become grimly familiar: Russian tanks rolling into Georgia in 2008, the seizure of Crimea in 2014, the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian military jets violating European airspace, and now mysterious drone sightings closing airports across Europe.
While these may seem like disconnected events, in reality they are but chapters in a singular, focused and evolving strategy. Russia’s aim is to wield military power when necessary, engage in “grey-zone” war tactics when possible, and exert political pressure everywhere. Moscow has been doing all this for decades, with one objective in mind: to redraw Europe’s security map without triggering direct war with Nato.
This singular focus was what governed Russia’s actions in the runup to its invasion of Ukraine. In December 2021, Moscow demanded that Nato bar Ukraine and Georgia from joining the alliance, and that Nato forces withdraw to their May 1997 positions, where they were before any former Soviet states in East Europe joined Nato.
This was not a diplomatic opening gambit to the February 2022 ground invasion, but an objective in and of itself. From the Kremlin’s perspective, Nato’s enlargement is both a humiliation and an existential threat, and must be curbed at all costs. [. . .]
Russia’s use of these tools is not new – it builds on strategies that have been refined since the Soviet collapse. From Transnistria to Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Donbas, Moscow sustains “unresolved” wars that lock states out of Nato and the EU, preserving Russian influence indefinitely. [. . .]
With regard to the West, the aim is exhaustion, not conquest – a “permanent test” designed to drain resources and unity through constant, low-level pressure. [. . .]
Russia’s strategy is not reactive, it is structural. The Kremlin seeks to force the West to accept a redrawn security order through a blend of coercion, probing, and perpetual testing. The tools may vary – from tanks to drones, from overt invasion to a hybrid war of attrition – but the aim endures: to undermine European unity and restore the sphere of influence lost by Russia in 1991.
Europe’s challenge is equally clear. It has to resist the fatigue of endless crisis and demonstrate that resilience, not fear, defines the continent’s future.
Moscow’s provocations will continue until the costs become prohibitive. Only a unified, prepared Europe can make that happen.' back

David Hastings Dunn (2025_10_15), Egypt peace summit showed that Donald Trump’s Gaza deal is more showbiz extravaganza than the ‘dawn of a new Middle East’ , ' Following the Middle East summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal has been compared in the media to the Good Friday agreement which brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland and the Dayton accords which achieved a (so far) lasting peace in the Balkans. The fact is that Trump’s deal differs significantly from both.
It is largely imposed from the outside. It’s highly transactional in nature. And it lacks a clear blueprint as to what happens next. [. . .]
What has been agreed between Israel and Hamas is an end to the fighting and the release of prisoners and hostages. But serious obstacles remain. The disarmament of Hamas is by no means a done deal (in fact it looks less likely by the day).
Meanwhile the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza also looks to be a non-starter and the plan’s text remains very vague as to the extent the Israel Defense Forces will move out of Gaza, if at all. Questions of governance, the agreement of a process towards a Palestinian state and the cost of reconstruction have yet to be resolved. [. . .]
The presence of so many world leaders at Trump’s peace summit requires a different explanation. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, UK prime minister, Keir Starmer and Canada’s Mark Carney might be forgiven for wondering why their presence was required as extras in this performative political theatre. [. . .]
But why they were willing to attend is equally revealing. As well as being seen to be supportive of the peace process and being keen to add to its momentum to raise the cost of its failure, Carney, Macron and Starmer are also playing a longer game. They perhaps hope to nudge Trump in the direction of further acts of international leadership.
Most notably, they are keen for Trump to embrace his self-identification as a “peacemaker” in order to pressure the Russian president Vladimir Putin to end his aggressive war against Ukraine.
Like most second-term US presidents Trump is concerned for his legacy. If flattering his ego into directing his energies towards this end achieves this goal, then their part in this iteration of the Trump Show should probably be judged by history as worthwhile.' ' back

Demis Hassabis & John Jumper, Nobel Lecture: Demis Hassabis: Accelerating scientific discovery with AI, ' This morning, Co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs Sir Demis Hassabis, and Google DeepMind Director Dr. John Jumper were co-awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work developing AlphaFold, a groundbreaking AI system that predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences. David Baker was also co-awarded for his work on computational protein design. back

Golden, KPop Demon Hunters, ' I was a ghost, I was alone 어두워진 앞길 속에 (hah) Given the throne, I didn't know how to believe I was the queen that I'm meant to be I lived two lives, tried to play both sides But I couldn't find my own place Called a problem child 'cause I got too wild But now that's how I'm getting paid 끝없이 on stage I'm done hidin', now I'm shinin' like I'm born to be We dreamin' hard, we came so far, now I'll believe We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment You know together we're glowing Gonna be, gonna be golden Oh, up, up, up with our voices 영원히 깨질 수 없는 Gonna be, gonna be golden Oh, I'm done hidin', now I'm shinin' like I'm born to be Oh, our time, no fears, no lies That's who we're born to be Waited so long to break these walls down To wake up and feel like me Put these patterns all in the past now And finally live like the girl they all see No more hiding, I'll be shining like I'm born to be 'Cause we are hunters, voices strong, and I know I'll believe We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment You know together we're glowing Gonna be, gonna be golden Oh, up, up, up, with our voices 영원히 깨질 수 없는 Gonna be, gonna be golden Oh, I'm done hidin', now I'm shining like I'm born to be Oh, our time, no fears, no lies That's who we're born to be You know we're gonna be, gonna be golden We're gonna be, gonna be Born to be, born to be glowin' 밝게 빛나는 우린 You know that it's our time, no fears, no lies That's who we're born to be Source: LyricFind back

JAPE / PPE, Journal of Australian Political Economy , ' Welcome to the home of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE)
Since 1977, the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) has published political economic alternatives to orthodox economics and analyses of key features of contemporary capitalism. The journal continues to foster debates about the interactions between capital, labour, ecology and the state, particularly in the Australian context.
JAPE publishes two issues each year, which are either ‘theme’ issues on a particular topic or ‘general’ issues containing articles on a range of topics. The journal’s editors are committed to publishing high-quality and peer-reviewed articles and encouraging young scholars to develop their research publications.
JAPE aims to reach as wide an audience as possible. It therefore encourages clear and straightforward writing on important topics of public interest. Interested in contributing? Read the submission guidelines here.
All current and previous JAPE articles are freely accessible on this site, and will be updated as each new issue is published. You can view all issues of the journal on this page.
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Jihn Hawkins (2025_10_14), The 2025 Nobel economics prize honours economic creation and destruction, ' Three economists [Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt. Ill]working in the area of “innovation-driven economic growth” have won this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. [. . .]
The economics prize was not one of the five originally nominated in Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel’s will in 1895. It is formally called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in 1969.
The awards to Mokyr and Howitt continue the pattern of the economics prize being dominated by researchers working at US universities.
It also continues the pattern of over-representation of men. Only three of the 99 economics laureates have been women.
Arguably, economics professor Rachel Griffith, rather than Mokyr, could have shared the prize with Aghion and Howitt this year. She co-authored the book Competition and Growth with Aghion, and co-wrote an article on competition with both of them.
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Jill Campbell (2024), Beyond the Gaze, 'In the 1960s, Jule Campbell transforms a struggling magazine into a media empire with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. back

John Jumper (2024_12_08), Nobel Lecture: Building chemical and biological intuition into protein structure prediction, back

Jon Pareles (2025_10_14), D’Angelo: 14 Essential Songs, ' The soul singer, songwriter and producer, who died on Tuesday at 51, released three studio albums of meticulously constructed, vocally ambitious, genre-crossing music. A man in a black tank top plays a black electric guitar onstage. D’Angelo onstage at Bonnaroo in 2012. He could be a one-man studio band in the mold of Prince and Stevie Wonder, or multitrack himself to simulate the collective yowl and cackle of Funkadelic or Sly & the Family Stone. Credit...Chad Batka for The New York Times Jon Pareles In his music, Michael Eugene Archer — D’Angelo, who died on Tuesday at 51 — was supremely assured. He crooned with Olympian ease over unhurried grooves that were full of musicianly details: thick chords, cagey syncopations, call-and-response vocal harmonies. All the musicianship often came from D’Angelo himself, singing and playing and producing.
He could be a one-man studio band in the mold of Prince and Stevie Wonder, overdubbing nearly all the instruments. He had a silken falsetto to rival Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Curtis Mayfield and Al Green. He could also multitrack himself to simulate the collective yowl and cackle of Funkadelic or Sly & the Family Stone. He had voices to convey richly seductive physical pleasures, unwavering devotion and gritty political resistance.
His ear was omnivorous. Funk, gospel, jazz, rock, electronics, hip-hop and every generation of soul and R&B informed songs that crystallized the 1990s movement known as neo-soul. D’Angelo was one focal point in a constellation of musicians and occasional collaborators — Angie Stone, Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq, Questlove, J Dilla — who each strove to reconcile organic vintage soul and digital-forward hip-hop. Still, every one of his songs flaunted D’Angelo’s visionary individuality.' back

Last universal common ancestor - Wikipedia, Last universal common ancestor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the most recent population from which all organisms now living on Earth share common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. . . . .. While no specific fossil evidence of the LUCA exists, the detailed biochemical similarity of all current life makes it plausible. Its characteristics can be inferred from shared features of modern genomes. These genes describe a complex life form with many co-adapted features, including transcription and translation mechanisms to convert information from DNA to mRNA to proteins. The LUCA probably lived in the high-temperature water of deep sea vents near ocean-floor magma flows around 4 billion years ago.' back

Lolita - Wikipedia, Lolita - Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, ' Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian and American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession and victimization of a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, whom he describes as a "nymphet". Humbert kidnaps and sexually abuses Dolores after becoming her stepfather. Privately, he calls her "Lolita", the Spanish diminutive for Dolores. The novel was written in English, but fear of censorship in the U.S. (where Nabokov lived) and Britain led to it being first published in Paris, France, in 1955 by Olympia Press.
The book has received critical acclaim regardless of the controversy it caused with the public. It has been included in many lists of best books, such as Time's List of the 100 Best Novels, Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, Bokklubben World Library, Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, and The Big Read. The novel has been twice adapted into film: first in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, and later in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for the stage. back

Lolita (1997 film) - Wikipedia, Lolita (1997 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Lolita is a 1997 erotic drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and written by Stephen Schiff. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty.
The film is about a middle-aged professor who is sexually attracted to adolescent girls he calls "nymphets". He rents a room in the house of a young widow to get closer to her 14-year-old daughter Lo, whom he calls "Lolita". Obsessed with the girl, he eventually gains control over her after he takes her cross-country with him. [. . .]
Commenting on differences between the novel and the film, Charles Taylor, in Salon, observes that "[f]or all of their vaunted (and, it turns out, false) fidelity to Nabokov, Lyne and Schiff have made a pretty, gauzy Lolita that replaces the book's cruelty and comedy with manufactured lyricism and mopey romanticism".[19] Extending Taylor's observation, Keith Phipps concludes: "Lyne doesn't seem to get the novel, failing to incorporate any of Nabokov's black comedy—which is to say, Lolita's heart and soul".' back

Louis Desdoigts et al. (2025_10_10), AMIGO: a Data-Driven Calibration of the JWST Interferometer, back

Meredith Chan (2025_10_14), Is Trump’s America at the start of a Soviet-style downfall?, ' America’s transformation under President Donald Trump has parallels with Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in the last years of the Soviet Union, and the effects will be felt throughout the democratic, regional and international orders, a prominent Chinese political scientist has warned.
Zheng Yongnian, dean of the public policy school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, described the US as undergoing a “Trumpian transformation” marked by “comprehensive and unprecedented” shifts in party politics, defence strategy and ideology.
In an article published last Friday in the Greater Bay Area Review, a social media account affiliated with the university, the political commentator said that deep structural tensions building in the United States during the post-Cold War era could only be resolved “either through radical reform or through an even more radical revolution”.
“Whether this revolution will unfold in a controlled manner, evolve into a genuine revolution or end halfway remains to be seen,” Zheng added. “What is certain, however, is that this revolution … must be profound.
“Otherwise, it will fail to address the structural crises confronting the US.” back

Philippe Aghion, Remarks in Paris after winning the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics, 'Nobel laureate Philippe Aghion delivers his full remarks in Paris after winning the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on innovation and growth. For more details, watch our story and subscribe to our channel, DRM News. back

Red Velvet, Red Velvet 레드벨벳 'Psycho' MV, back