The New Yorker: Science & Technology

"Doctors are increasingly worried about Biden, The politics of listening, Why facts don't change our minds."

Views expressed in this science and technology update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 20 July 2024, 1415 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://hawaiisciencejournal.blogspot.com).

 

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In today’s newsletter, a most unserious time, and then: • Doctors are increasingly worried about Biden • The politics of listening • Why facts don’t change our minds The Trump Assassination Attempt Meets the Internet’s Brain-Rot Era Today’s social platforms can instantly convert even the most harrowing news events into misleading tidbits and gleefully empty jokes. By Kyle Chayka Illustration by Ariel Davis; Source photograph by Evan Vucci / AP After a gunman attacked Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, the first pieces of media to emerge were striking photographs of Trump, with blood trickling down his face, pumping his fist defiantly as Secret Service officers escorted him off the stage. My colleague Benjamin Wallace-Wells described this scene, as captured by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press, as “the indelible image of our era of political crisis and conflict.” (Trump later gloated, “Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”) As many have noted, these pictures are the documents of the incident which are presumably destined for the history books. In the present, though, public perception is influenced just as much by how the shooting gets digested and distributed online as countless fragments of viral content. Fittingly, for an event involving a former President notorious for spreading disinformation and inanity online, the assassination attempt on Trump suggests just how rapidly today’s social platforms can distort a deadly serious news event into misleading tidbits and gleefully empty jokes. Keep reading If you know someone who would enjoy Science & Technology, please share it. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up. Editor’s Picks  Medical Dispatch Doctors Are Increasingly Worried About Biden Nine physicians weighed in on the President’s health. Almost all were concerned that Biden’s symptoms might go beyond a gradual, aging-related decline. By Dhruv Khullar Onward and Upward with Technology How Lawrence Abu Hamdan Hears the World The artist and audio investigator, who calls himself a “private ear,” investigates crimes that are heard but not seen. By Doreen St. Félix Testing the Waters A (Covert) Pre-Olympics Dip in the E. Coli-Infested Seine Tired of the stalling of French officials who’d vowed to swim in Paris’s purportedly clean waters, one American expat takes matters into his own hands. By Lauren Collins From the Archive  Books Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert Cartoon by Carolita Johnson More from The New Yorker  Atlanta Postcard How to Find Civil War Skeletons Under Your Condo After burst water mains caused an “aqua apocalypse” in Atlanta, one relic hunter used the extensive digging for repairs as an opportunity to search for lost treasures. By Charles Bethea  The Current Cinema “Twisters” Takes the Fun Out of Heavy Weather The original “Twister” had no compunction about making tornadoes look awesome. Lee Isaac Chung’s sequel treats them as deadly serious. By Richard Brody  Books 1982 and the Fate of Filmgoing A new book claims that a few big summer movies heralded an epochal shift in the motion-picture industry, but is that really how cultural history works? By Anthony Lane  Annals of the Sea Were Pirates Foes of the Modern Order—or Its Secret Sharers? We’ve long viewed them as liberty-loving rebels. But it’s time to take off the eye patch. By Daniel Immerwahr P.S. The movie “Twisters” is out this week. For a real-life storm chaser’s point of view, revisit the photographer Camille Seaman’s cloudscapes. At once haunting and stunning, the images contain “humankind’s self-portrait: potent, defiant, unforgiving,” Alan Burdick writes.

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