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Why criticism lasts longer than praiseMost of us are subjected to insults, sarcastic comments or bad feedback in our eve...
27/06/2022

Why criticism lasts longer than praise
Most of us are subjected to insults, sarcastic comments or bad feedback in our everyday lives. But we weren't built to deal with torrents of criticism.
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As children we are often told that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can never hurt. Yet with the benefit of experience, adults understand that this old proverb is far from true – while physical injuries can take a matter of weeks to heal, negative comments can scar us for a lifetime.

Whether it's criticism calmly dispensed by a teacher at school, or a cruel comment hurled in the heat of an argument with a friend or lover, we tend to remember criticism far better than positive comments, due to a phenomenon called the negativity bias.

In fact, a whole host of complex effects can be explained by this bias, which is the universal tendency for negative emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones. It causes us to pay special attention to threats and exaggerate the dangers, according to Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist at the University of Queensland and co-author of The Power of Bad: And How to Overcome It.

Full Metal Jacket and Kubrick: The ultimate anti-war filmsStanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket was released 35 years ago....
26/06/2022

Full Metal Jacket and Kubrick: The ultimate anti-war films
Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket was released 35 years ago. Gregory Wakeman explores how the film, and others by the director, revealed "the mindlessness and cruelty of conflict" – as well as the transformation of young men into killing machines.
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Cinephiles often speak of their regret that legendary director Stanley Kubrick only made 13 films in his illustrious 46-year-long career. This blow is somewhat softened by the fact that most of his work, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining and Spartacus, to Lo**ta, Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket, which turns 35 on 26 June, all look and feel entirely unique. Kubrick's output was undeniably eclectic. But there was one genre that he couldn't help but return to… the war genre.

The detectives hunting for underwater volcanoesIn January 2022, a giant undersea volcano explosion rocked Tonga in the P...
08/06/2022

The detectives hunting for underwater volcanoes
In January 2022, a giant undersea volcano explosion rocked Tonga in the Pacific. How do scientists find where and when the next one will blow?
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During the summer of 1883, a caldera in the Sunda Strait, located between the islands of Java and Sumatra, became increasingly turbulent, releasing huge plumes of ash and steam into the sky. Then, on 26 August, an underwater volcano ejected approximately 25 km3 (six cubic miles) of debris, hurtling pumice ash and boiling lava flows across nearby settlements. The eruption killed tens of thousands of people. Krakatoa remains one of the most deadly underwater eruptions in history.

Nearly a century and a half later, on 15 January 2022, another underwater giant awoke from its slumber, this time off the shores of Tonga. The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption and resulting tsunami were different, however. Volcanologists were able to document the undereater mountain’s violent release in real time, and what they found confounded their expectations.

The South Pacific nation was all but cut off from the rest of the world after an undersea communications cable was severed by the explosion, but satellites captured hundreds of lightning discharges issuing forth from the volcano’s ash clouds. Remote sensors recorded powerful shock waves reverberating across the globe for days. A column of ash rose to never before seen heights, lingering in the outer reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.

The Hunga Tonga eruption remains a humanitarian disaster for the nearly 100,000 people who live in Tonga – and an unfolding tale of mystery and caution for the world. It prompted scientists to rethink their ideas on the hazards posed by the many submarine volcanoes lurking beneath the oceans. Now, the hunt is on to find these underwater seamounts in order to protect land and ocean alike.

Inside the homes of the 'new naturalists'How the eclectic collections that combine botanical know-how and creativity are...
07/06/2022

Inside the homes of the 'new naturalists'
How the eclectic collections that combine botanical know-how and creativity are bringing nature indoors. Dominic Lutyens takes a glimpse into the collectors' intriguing worlds.

Homes filled with objects culled from the natural world – from gnarled bones and flamboyant feathers to twisted twigs and taxidermy – are increasingly common, as a new book highlights. The New Naturalists – Inside the Homes of Creative Collectors by Claire Bingham features domestic interiors adorned with objects casually picked up in parks or on beaches or acquired at flea markets and fairs. "The book looks at homes from all over the world – different collections and aesthetics – with each story bound to one person or couple's obsession for collecting, and a magpie urge to acquire," Bingham tells BBC Culture.

The meaning behind the Japanese Zen gardenThere is beauty and tranquillity to be found in Zen gardens. But these enigmat...
06/06/2022

The meaning behind the Japanese Zen garden
There is beauty and tranquillity to be found in Zen gardens. But these enigmatic spaces also express the highest truths of philosophy, write Steve John Powell and Angeles Marin Cabello.
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For most gardeners, stones – along with slugs, blackfly and weeds – are a pest, something to be eradicated. Yet in Japan, some of the most astonishing gardens consist of nothing but rocks and stones. As 19th-Century writer Lafcadio Hearn wrote: "to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand the beauty of stones."

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Rock and stones are vital elements in any Japanese garden, and the ultimate expression of the beauty of stones lies in the sekitei, or rock gardens, expanses of raked white gravel, dotted with strategically-placed stones. But there's more to the gardens than mere beauty. Explorer and art historian Langdon Warner (the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) observed that Japanese gardens are designed "to express the highest truths of religion and philosophy precisely as other civilisations have made use of the arts of literature and philosophy".

Oksana Linde and the forgotten pioneers of electronic musicThe recent release of an album 39 years in the making is part...
01/06/2022

Oksana Linde and the forgotten pioneers of electronic music
The recent release of an album 39 years in the making is part of a global movement shedding a light on women composers who have been overlooked, writes Allyson McCabe.
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When she was 17 years old, Daphne Oram was told by the famous medium Leslie Flint that she was destined to become a great musician – a prophecy that led her to ditch plans to train for a career in nursing. Instead, Oram took a position as a music balancer with the BBC in 1943. She tested microphone input and output levels, and when musicians performed in wartime, she stood at the ready with a pre-recorded version of the music on the turntable, should the live broadcast be interrupted by the intrusion of enemy fire.

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By the mid-1940s, Oram started conducting sonic experiments after hours, composing a 1949 piece called Still Point for double orchestra, live electronics, and turntables. A bit too ahead of its time, it was rejected by the BBC, though Oram was promoted to studio manager. In 1957 she created the first commissioned piece of electronic music in BBC history shortly before co-founding the influential BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Recognising the potential for technology to create and express an entirely new musical language, she left the BBC in 1959 to establish her own studio where she invented "Oramics," a system to transform drawings into sounds via the transfer of etchings on to 35mm film stock.

Oram draws timbres on the Oramics machine (Credit: Fred Wood/Daphne Oram)
Oram draws timbres on the Oramics machine (Credit: Fred Wood/Daphne Oram)

Another pioneer, Delia Derbyshire, won a scholarship to study mathematics at Cambridge where she also pursued music, graduating with a dual degree. After being rejected by Decca, where she was told that women were not welcome, Derbyshire joined the BBC in 1960 as a trainee assistant studio manager. Two years later, she transferred to the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, where she remained until 1973.

Derbyshire composed music for shows such as Time on our Hands and The World about Us, but her masterwork was the arrangement of Ron Grainer's 1963 theme music for Dr Who, a process that involved recording hundreds of sounds on analogue tape, adjusting the pitch of each one, then seamlessly splicing them together. BBC policy, which held that members of the Workshop should remain anonymous, meant that her role as a co-composer was not recognised until 2013, when she received an on-screen credit on The Day of the Doctor, a special episode to commemorate the show's 50th anniversary.

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