Libraries Become ‘Urban Mediaspaces’ And Engines Of Urban Renewal

“A mixed-use, multimedia complex that is meant to foster social interaction and creative ferment as much as reading and research, the library of the future is also intended as an engine of city-center rejuvenation. Examples have gone up in dozens of places around the world” – Salt Lake City, Seattle, Vancouver, Chongqing, Tenerife, Brisbane, Cardiff …

Legendary Reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski Accused Of ‘Fiction-Writing’

“He has been voted the greatest journalist of the 20th century. In an unparalleled career, Ryszard Kapuscinski transformed the humble job of reporting into a literary art, chronicling the wars, coups and bloody revolutions that shook Africa and Latin America in the 1960s and 70s. But a new book claims that … [he] repeatedly crossed the boundary between reportage and fiction-writing – or, to put it less politely, made stuff up.”

Is Human Culture A Buffer Against Natural Selection Or An Engine Of It?

“Biologists have seen [culture] as a shield that protects people from the full force of other selective pressures, since clothes and shelter dull the bite of cold and farming helps build surpluses to ride out famine. … Many biologists are now seeing the role of culture in a quite different light. Although it does shield people from other forces, culture itself seems to be a powerful force of natural selection.”