Here’s another round of science news, once again staying away from the fast evolving covid-19 topics.
We start with a couple of economics papers. The first one is just a reaffirmation of an already widely held theory that societies that historically have jointly practiced irrigation tend to more collectivist even today. More controversial is the assertion that the descendants of such societies, even after they have moved away from their ancestral homelands, tend to be less innovative and to be more engaged in routine-intensive occupations.
Next we have a paper arguing that participation in the financial markets shifts people’s perspective on various issues to be effectively more right leaning. The scientists performed an experiment in which they gave money to people over time to invest in stocks and tracked their social and political attitudes. The resulting rightward shift in attitudes encompassed issues such as redistribution, economic fairness and inequality. Again, nothing very surprising, buth worth confirming.
Then we have easily the coolest bit of science news this month, the announcement that scientists have observed the so-called fifth state of matter, Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), for the first time in space. This observation was made as a result of an experiment on board the International Space Station. What’s significant about this is that the BSEs thus made in microgravity lasts for over a second compared to the milliseconds that they can be made to last on Earth.
Finally a fun read about how Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is spiralling away far faster than previously thought. Of course rapidly is a relative thing so don’t expect Titan to break orbit anytime soon and the same phenomenon holds true for the other moons in our Solar System. Our own Moon for example moves a few centimeters away from the Earth each year. The reason for this is the interaction between the gravitational force exerted by the moons on the planets they orbit and the rotation of the planets, causing a tidal bulge that helps push the moons further away.
This may be a David Lynch film but it’s also noted as being the film that is the most unlike his established style, so much so that people kept asking what prompted him to make it. Indeed with its opening score by Angelo Badalamenti and an aerial shot that immediately brings to mind Twin Peaks, it feels like classic Lynch but then the story proper starts with its determinedly positive message, it’s such a sharp turnaround that it’s almost enough to give you whiplash.
This is the latest of the recent spate of American Chinese films to receive critical acclaim and I admit that I have a particular fondness for them, being curious as to they might slowly shape the identities of ethnic Chinese in the United States. The Farewell is actually the most Chinese of these films yet. It does star Awkwafina who isn’t especially Chinese but the director here Lulu Wang was indeed born in China and only later moved to the US. The film itself takes place almost entirely in China, with only some brief scenes in the beginning set in the US.
Even after years at it, revisiting the great classics of cinema is a never ending affair and so here we have one of the earliest and most famous exemplars of the French New Wave movement. The director is of course Alain Resnais but I think we should also give due credit to screenwriter Marguerite Duras. I also note that the producers of the film stipulated that one of the main characters must be French and the other must be Japanese and scenes must be shot in both countries. So labouring under these restrictions, Resnais and Duras created this thoroughly unique film.
As usual I’m a few years behind the curve playing this extremely popular and meme-worthy game late. But that’s just fine for me and this truly is one of the genre-changing games that all gamers must get around to trying eventually. The main campaign, such as it is, takes less than three hours to complete. After that there are various challenges, secrets to find, and an Endless mode if you’re up for that kind of thing, which I’m usually not.
Here’s a classic Hollywood adventure film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn and directed by John Huston. It’s notable in that they actually did film this at least partially in the Belgian Congo, which must have been quite a feat in the 1950s. It’s a fun enough adventure that is entertaining even today but there’s nothing especially noteworthy in it.
The proper Nosferatu film is of course the 1922 silent one by German director F. W. Murnau but we’ve never watched and judging that it is perhaps a little too difficult to grasp in the present, I decided to skip over it. This one is the 1979 remake by Werner Herzog, once again starring his favorite actor Klaus Kinski. Unfortunately while this is solid work the impact is subdued due to how familiar we all are with the Dracula story and I kept wondering how much of it really comes from the earlier work. I now think maybe I should have watched that instead.
