James Frey's Blog, page 72

The Long-tail Rising

from Showbiz 411 What Year Is It? Oldies Take Up 8 of the Top 20 on iTunes Including 1994 “Zombie” and 1970 “Spirit in the Sky” by Roger Friedman What year is it again? While Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” is number 1, and Justin Bieber is in the top 10, the […]

Critic Declares Warhol Not Lame

from The New York Times Warhol a Lame Copier? The Judges Who Said So Are Sadly Mistaken. An appeals court ruled that Andy Warhol violated a photographer’s copyright by appropriating her image for a silk-screen he did in 1984. Our critic disagrees. By Blake Gopnik A few years back, a bevy of art critics declared that Marcel Duchamp’s […]

Giant Crab Radio

from VICE Mysterious Radio Blasts From Space Just Got a Whole Lot Weirder, Somehow Scientists discovered that so-called “giant radio pulses” coincide with X-rays, suggesting they are hundreds of times more energetic than previously thought. By Becky Ferreira In the year 1054, skywatchers in China and Japan witnessed light from an exploding star reach Earth, creating […]

Almost da Vinci

from France 24 World’s priciest painting not a full da Vinci, claims doc A French documentary has cast fresh doubts over the world’s most expensive painting, the “Salvator Mundi” credited to Leonardo da Vinci, revealing a resulting diplomatic tussle between France and its Saudi owner. The painting of Jesus Christ, nicknamed the “male Mona Lisa”, […]

Vampire Valley

from Newsweek Can Blood from Young People Slow Aging? Silicon Valley Has Bet Billions It Will BY ADAM PIORE The Spanish firm Grifols helped set off a kerfuffle last year when it, along with other firms, offered nearly double the going price for blood donations for a COVID-19 treatment trial. Brigham Young University in Idaho had […]

Baby Satting

from SF Gate Satellite technology puts into orbit swarms of spacecraft no bigger than a loaf of bread Christian Davenport, The Washington Post The avalanche was a stunning disaster, 247 million cubic feet of glacial ice and snow hurtling down the Tibetan mountain range at 185 mph. Nine people and scores of animals were killed in […]

A Fifth Force

from BBC Muons: ‘Strong’ evidence found for a new force of nature By Pallab Ghosh IMAGE COPYRIGHTREIDAR HAHN / FERMILAB From sticking a magnet on a fridge door to throwing a ball into a basketball hoop, the forces of physics are at play in every moment of our lives. All of the forces we experience […]

Wheelmaker

from WIRED Who Invented the Wheel? And How Did They Do It? The wagon—and the wagon wheel—could not have been put together in stages. Either it works, or it doesn’t. And it enabled humans to spread rapidly into huge parts of the world. by CODY CASSIDY ILLUSTRATION: CASEY CHIN HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of years before the […]

The Death Hole

from Der Spiegel A Visit to the World’s Deadliest Dive Site It doesn’t have the nicest coral formations nor the most fish. But the Blue Hole in the Gulf of Aqaba is a magnet for divers, primarily because of its reputation. Dozens of adventurers have lost their lives here over the years and, when they […]

The Cetaceans Are Coming! The Cetaceans Are Coming!

from SF Gate Video shows 1,000-dolphin ‘stampede’ off California coast by Andrew Chamings ‘Super-pod,’ ‘mega-pod’ or a ‘dolphin stampede,’ whatever you want to call it, the sight of 1,000 dolphins swimming alongside you is a rare and mesmerizing spectacle. Tourists on a charter boat off Dana Point in Orange County were treated to that very […]