Sometimes, it takes the creative impetus of a great filmmaker to finally pick up that chunky novel that’s been sitting gathering dust on your book shelves since god-knows-when. Such was the case with my own yellowing edition of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel, ‘Vineland’, which I’d shirked for too long having understood it to be, from contemporary reviews, one of the author’s...
Google’s Nano Banana image-generation model, officially known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, has fueled global momentum for the Gemini app since launching last month. But in India, it has taken on a creative life of its own, with retro portraits and local trends going viral — even as privacy and safety concerns begin to emerge. India has emerged as the...
Groww, India’s largest retail brokerage firm, is set to test the country’s public markets with a multi-billion-dollar IPO. The listing comes comes just over a year after the company restructured its corporate headquarters from Delaware back to India — a move that could make it the first Indian startup to list at home following a relocation from the U.S. Backed...
Smartphone startup Nothing announced today that it closed its Series C round of $200 million, which was led by the investment firm Tiger Global. With this round, the consumer electronics company is now valued at $1.3 billion. Other investors in the round included existing backers such as venture outfits GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF, and Tapestry. The company, founded...
A Noble Madness: The Dark Side of Collecting from Antiquity to Now James Delbourgo Riverrun (2025)The Galileo Museum, a science museum in Florence, Italy, has astronomer Galileo Galilei’s preserved middle finger on display. Encased in a gilded glass egg, the digit is exhibited “as if it were the relic of a Christian saint”, remarks historian of science James Delbourgo in...
President Donald Trump says the US military has destroyed an alleged Venezuelan drug vessel travelling in international waters on the way to the US.Trump said on Monday that three men were killed in the attack on "violent drug trafficking cartels". He provided no evidence that the boat was carrying drugs.Shortly before, his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro said Caracas would defend...
AUGUSTA COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) -- A 25-year-old is dead following a hit-and-run incident involving an e-bike and an alleged drunk driver in Augusta County on Sunday. The hit-and-run crash happened on Sunday, Sept. 14 at around 9 p.m. when a Kia Sorento that was traveling northbound on Stuarts Draft Highway (Route 340) hit an e-bike near the intersection of Ladd...
(RNS) — On Aug. 27, over a thousand attendees lifted their voices in worship at Washington, D.C.,’s Kennedy Center as part of a red-carpet premiere of a new documentary, “The Revival Generation: Gen Z Turning to Jesus.” As the notes of the last song faded, Abigail Robertson, granddaughter of famed televangelist Pat Robertson and producer of the film, took the...
Against the backdrop of high market demand for effective anti-ageing cosmetics, a team of Chinese researchers assessed the clinical effectiveness of a 0.1 % pterostilbene-containing skincare emulsion against a control emulsion over 28 days with 31 participants. The study employed a double-blind, split-face design, comparing the left and right sides of the face and using advanced instruments along with subject...
For over five centuries, Leonardo Da Vinci has been celebrated as a visionary artist, scientist, and inventor, known for his extraordinary talent and groundbreaking experiments. Today, an international collaboration known as the Leonardo DNA Project is closer than ever to uncovering the biological secrets of the greatest genius of the Renaissance. In their new book "Genìa Da Vinci. Genealogy and...
