What If You’re A Fiction Writer, But You Need To Write About Science?

Well then, you become obsessed with theoretical physics, of course. Just ask Nell Freudenberger. Freudenberger “was, like so many other young women, encouraged to believe she didn’t ‘have the right kind of brain for it.’ After doing badly in a maths test in her teens, she was told by a teacher that she might as well quit.” – The Guardian (UK)

The Belorussian Nobel Laureate Whose Work Is The Uncredited Foundation Of The New Series ‘Chernobyl’

Svetlana Alexiévich published Voices from Chernobyl in 1997, 11 years after the catastrophe. Now, a new HBO miniseries is bringing the story to life for a new generation – “but for Alexiévich and the former citizens of the USSR who were living in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia at that time, it is still life.” – El País (Spain)

Dear iTunes, Thanks For Saving The Music Industry From Itself

In 2001, the music industry “faced an existential threat” because its “vanquishing of Napster turned out to be a pyrrhic victory: the genie had escaped from the bottle. Dozens of filesharing systems had come into being.” iTunes (even though it’s now bloated and terrible and leaving) “was a revelation,” and made paying for music online a norm. – The Guardian (UK)

Casual French Is Sprinkled With English Words, But Young French Workers Say They Need More

One young woman who is at “the university of Mickey Mouse” – that is, working in communications for Disneyland Paris – says that fluency in idiomatic English is a must-have for business. If you aren’t fluent, she says, you’re ashamed – and “it makes you feel excluded.” And the laws that help French resist anglicization may be part of the problem. – Le Monde (France)