Rita Aksenfeld in Nature:
A common bacterium can be adapted to convert plastic waste into paracetamol, a study published this week in Nature Chemistry1 reports. Paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, is widely used to treat pain and fever. It is produced from molecules derived from fossil fuels, but researchers are working to develop processes that use more sustainable source molecules, such as plastic waste. “We’re able to transform a prolific environmental and societal waste into such a globally important medication in a way that’s completely impossible using chemistry alone or using biology alone,” says co-author Stephen Wallace, a chemical biotechnologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Central to the project’s success was the discovery by Wallace and his team that a synthetic chemical reaction that typically requires conditions that are toxic to cells can occur in their presence. The reaction, called the Lossen rearrangement, has been known for over a century, but had previously been observed only in a test tube or a flask, says Wallace.
More here.
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A century ago, someone with an interest in psychology might have turned to the work of Freud for an overarching vision of how the mind works. To the extent there is a psychological theory even remotely as significant today, it is the “predictive processing” hypothesis. The brain is a prediction machine and our perceptual experiences consist of our prior experiences as well as new data. Daniel Yon’s A Trick of the Mind is just the latest popularisation of these ideas, but he makes an excellent guide, both as a scientist working at the leading edge of this field and as a writer of great clarity. Your brain is a “skull bound scientist”, he proposes, forming hypotheses about the world and collecting data to test them.
Hofstadter: One does what one’s desires determine one to do. I, like everyone else, am filled with conflicting desires, and they fight it out inside my brain, and the fight’s winner determines what I will do. Last weekend, for instance, I was of two minds about whether or not to go to the “No Kings” demonstration here in Bloomington. Part of me wanted very much to be part of the collective action against all the forces of evil that have taken over this country, but another part of me wanted very much to work on a personal project that is super-important to me. These forces inside me battled, and in the end, the go-to-the-rally force just barely beat out the work-on-your-project force, and so I went (and I’m glad I did). I “decided” to do so in the sense that the two above-described intense desires battled it out inside of me, and the stronger of them won. There was no freedom there; it was just a battle to see which desire was stronger. (In case you want to read more on this, I spell these ideas out somewhat more fully in Chapter 23 of I Am a Strange Loop.)
Zohran Mamdani, a little-known state lawmaker whose progressive platform and campaign trail charisma electrified younger voters, stunned former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City on Tuesday night, building a lead so commanding that Mr. Cuomo conceded.
Garnets, however, are the true fruit of the underworld. They occur in a variety of colors, not just red, and all of them have colorful properties and histories. Calcium-aluminum garnet is called grossular, from the Latin name for gooseberry, a reference to its translucent pink to pale green hue. Calcium-chromium garnet is a rare grass-green variety named uvarovite, after Count Sergey Uvarov (1786-1855), who, when not busy with his duties as a statesman under Russian Emperor Nicholas I, spent his time collecting unusual minerals. These calcium-rich varieties of garnet are most commonly found in marbles and “skarns” — rocks formed by the metamorphism of limestones interbedded with shale and sandstone.
Burra’s hard-to-categorise career is the subject of an immaculate and revealing new exhibition at Tate Britain. It shows a man whose art reflected a rare sense of engagement with his times, especially its queer fringes. The works of the 1920s and 1930s treat his experiences in France and New York and verge on both satire and caricature. Burra used watercolour almost as oil paint and built up layers to give unusual depth of colour and subtle gradations.
Zohran Mamdani, a little-known state lawmaker whose progressive platform and campaign trail charisma electrified younger voters, stunned former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City on Tuesday night, building a lead so commanding that Mr. Cuomo conceded.
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“I know this is considered heresy, but I like it best when it’s ice cold,” says Agnetha Fältskog, then looks around before spooning a couple of large ice cubes into her glass of Chablis.
“People who have more frequent nightmares age faster and die earlier,” says 
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In January, the economist and blogger Tyler Cowen 
For over a century there has been just one verifiable photograph of Dickinson. In the iconic black and white silver daguerreotype, she is not wearing the white dress. She’s a teenager fixed in a dress she will live in forever. And that dress is made in an undefinable dark printed fabric with a slight sheen. Not surprising, given dark fabrics were considered more suitable as it kept sitters from becoming spectral blurs—there and not there. But people will mostly forget this first dress. There’s nothing spectacular or singular about it. The daguerreotype era produces millions of replica dark dresses. There’s no narrative we can attach to its common folds. The white fabric arrives in the future.
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