Though he lived and worked in the 18th and 19th centuries, the English physician Edward Jenner might have felt right at home in the culture war currently being fought over COVID-19 vaccines. Sometimes called the “Father of Immunology,” Jenner complained in harsh terms about those who opposed his theories, calling them “those little minded Persons who think everything impossible which does not come within the narrow sphere of their own comprehension.” That particular jab comes from an 1802 letter that Jenner sent to John Glover Loy, a fellow physician in whom Jenner saw an ally. The letter, which details the work both men were doing on smallpox immunization, was recently sold by Dominic Winter Auctioneers in the United Kingdom for...
Now today is Friday eve and I'm here for it. I have a busy day of appointments, tennis, and dance and I am going to be exhausted by the time my head hits the pillow. I was just telling Matt that it feels like summer is going by at lightening speed but we haven't done anything. Well, we've done our anniversary trip, but that's it. We have to do something with the kids because they ask EVERY DAY if we're going to do anything fun this summer. Which.... we are, I just need to get it together and make actual plans. Lockdown Hair - Linda Steinbock Uh oh! Siona's family needs her help! Siona is worried about her mum going back...
Photo: Marion Ettlinger. At 248 pages, Joshua Cohen’s latest novel, The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, is slim by his standards. His 2010 comic novel Witz comes to 824 pages. Book of Numbers is just shy of 600. Beyond page count, there is an instantly recognizable intensity to Cohen’s writing, and in this respect, too, The Netanyahus is a bit of an outlier, for it unfolds with the ease of an anecdote, a comic—if cautionary—tale. Published in the U.S. this week by New York Review Books, the novel follows a series of events surrounding a job talk in 1960 by the conservative religious historian Benzion...
1. In May 2018, Sundar Pichai of Google announced that their artificial intelligence, Duplex AI, had passed the Turing test. A robotic assistant could make an appointment in a voice that possessed a human inflection and an informality of manner and with a sophistication of expression that rendered the machine indistinguishable from a human assistant. The initial reaction was retreat. A few days later, Google announced that Duplex AI would identify itself as a robot when making calls. Engineers created a machine that was indistinguishable from a person and then insisted that machine distinguish itself from a person. The collective confusion around the arrival of virtual beings, the horror mingled with wonder, is apparent right from the start. Engineers and...
Cross a toy off their Amazon wish list! Hop on over to Amazon where the highly-rated LeapFrog Scoop & Learn Ice Cream Cart is on sale for Prime Members for just $32.89 (regularly $46.99) – lowest price! With the LeapFrog Scoop & Learn Ice Cream Cart, learning is sweet! It introduces colors, numbers, and more through pretend play. Kiddos can push the cart around to build motor skills while listening to fun music. They’ll also build memory and sequencing skills by following instructions on the included activity cards. Parents love this child-favorite learning toy from LeapFrog: This is SOOOO cute! It is a good size toy but not too large so my 18 month old is able to push it around...
