Across China: 70 years on, Chinese scientists preserve plateau highway on permafrost

Science and Health

Chen Donggen (L), director of the Golmud observation and research base under CCCC First Highway Consultants Co., Ltd., a highway survey and design company, checks permafrost samples with a colleague in Golmud, northwest China’s Qinghai Province, Dec. 3, 2024. (Xinhua/Jiang Fan)LHASA, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) — On the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau in China, drivers jokingly refer to a section of a highway as the “washboard road” or “a road of potholes” because it undulates like waves and driving a little faster will cause severe car bumps.The road section, located at an average altitude of more than 4,500 meters, was built on permafrost, making the road surface prone to distortion.This year marks the 70th anniversary of the operation of the Qinghai-Xizang Highway. Dubbed the “Suez Canal on the roof of the world,” the highway shoulders the responsibility of transporting 70 percent of the goods to Xizang Autonomous Region and 30 percent of personnel, with an average annual vehicle flow exceeding 1.3 million.Of the highway’s total length of over 1,900 km, 550 km are permafrost sections.”Permafrost expands dramatically like ice freezing in winter, causing road surfaces to bulge, while in summer, it contracts rapidly like melting ice, leading to the sinking of the surfaces,” said Chen Donggen, a scientist stationed in the city of Golmud, Qinghai Province, along the highway for permafrost research. “The undulations directly affect traffic safety.”To ensure the safe operation of the highway, Chinese scientists have been studying permafrost for many years.By setting up observation stations on the plateau, they have collected a large amount of data on the changes in the permafrost layer.The data shows that over the past few decades, the temperature of the permafrost layer on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau has been gradually rising, and the melting pace is accelerating.To cope with the impact of the permafrost, a series of measures have been adopted.A common practice is the application of metal pipes on both sides of the road sections, said Chen, also director of the Golmud observation and research base under a highway survey and design company. “The metal pipes serve as conductive heat pipes to stabilize the temperature of the permafrost layer,” he said.In addition, scientists have added “insulation boards” on top of the permafrost layer, using special materials to create boards that can prevent heat from transferring downward in summer.”This is similar to how we used to see the elderly selling popsicles, wrapping them in thick blankets,” said Chen.Beneath the road surface, a row of ventilation ducts are buried above the roadbed. With the inside airflow carrying away the heat from the surrounding soil of the roadbed, the ventilation ducts help effectively maintain the low temperature of the roadbed and reduce the melting of permafrost, keeping the stability of the roadbed, Chen added.Over the past 70 years, the Chinese government has invested heavily in multiple renovations and reconstructions of the highway, transforming from the original gravel road surface to the current asphalt surface.In national nature reserves, construction workers have built viaducts to replace some road sections along the highway, with the latest one built in 2020.Gao Yongli, Party chief of the development and emergency response center of the Qinghai-Xizang Highway, said viaducts not only improve the straightness of the road surface but also reduce the highway’s impact on wildlife, allowing wild animals to migrate unaffected by the traffic.”The less disturbance to the permafrost layer, the more beneficial it is for the stability of the highway’s roadbed,” he said. ■Trucks pass through a road section of the Qinghai-Xizang Highway built on permafrost flanked by metal pipes, which serve as conductive heat pipes to stabilize the temperature of the permafrost layer, on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau in northwest China’s Qinghai Province, Dec. 2, 2024. (Xinhua/Jiang Fan)

India Post abolishes Book Post service, impacting reading culture

Arts & Culture, Books

On December 18, 2024, India Post made the sudden and unexpected decision to abolish its widely used, and beneficial, ‘Book Post’ service, leaving book lovers and the literary community stunned.The Book Post initiative, particularly the Registered Book Post (RBP) service, was a critical part of India’s efforts to promote education, encourage reading, and disseminate knowledge across the nation. With this service, shipping up to five kilos of books costs only Rs 80, a price unmatched by any courier service. India Post’s extensive network, covering 19,101 pin codes and 154,725 post offices, ensured prompt and reliable deliveries. Most parcels arrived within a week, and local deliveries within cities were often completed the very next day. These subsidized rates were specifically designed to support a reading culture in the country, offering discounted rates for books, magazines, and periodicals.However, without prior consultation or any warning, India Post removed this valuable service. The Registered Book Post category was quietly erased from the postal software last week, catching even postal employees by surprise. Many were left in disbelief when customers visiting post offices were told that RBP was no longer an option.The discontinuation of this service has created waves of distress in the publishing industry. With the cost of shipping now soaring, many readers are reluctant to pay ₹78 postage on a book priced at just Rs 100. This decision threatens to further erode India’s already fragile reading culture.The difference in rates between the RBP and the standard ‘Registered Parcel’ service is stark. For instance, shipping a one kg parcel through RBP costs Rs 32, while the same parcel shipped as a Registered Parcel now costs Rs 78. For two kgs, the charges were Rs 45 for RBP, compared to Rs 116 for the alternative. For five kgs, the difference is Rs 80 for RBP and Rs 229 for the Registered Parcel.In addition to this, the government’s imposition of a 5% import duty on sample books has further aggravated the situation. Foreign publishers, who frequently send complimentary copies of their translated works, are now burdened with this new tax. While taxing books imported for commercial purposes may be justifiable, imposing duties on non-commercial sample copies seems both unjustified and counterproductive.Critics see this decision as yet another example of the government’s arbitrary policies, which often seem to harm rather than help the public.As India faces the consequences of this shortsighted decision, its literary and educational aspirations are now under threat. The removal of the Book Post service represents a significant setback to the country’s commitment to literacy, education, and intellectual growth. In an era when knowledge is key to progress, dismantling a service that facilitated the spread of ideas and learning across the country is nothing short of a tragedy.

Business News | Empowering Future Forensic Scientists: JAIN (Deemed-to-be-University)’s Trailblazing Forensic Science Programs

Science and Health

PNNBangalore (Karnataka) [India], December 23: Forensic Science has become an indispensable part of modern judicial systems, combining science and technology to uncover truths and solve crimes. JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), School of Sciences, Bangalore, offers two advanced programs: Bachelor of Science (Honours / Honours with Research) in Applied Forensic Science with CSoFS-UK and Bachelor of Science (Honours / Honours with Research) (for Professional Courses) in Forensic Science. These meticulously crafted programs cater to students aspiring to revolutionise crime investigation and pursue rewarding careers in the field.Also Read | Unnao Rape Survivor Father’s Death: Delhi High Court Extends Expelled BJP Leader Kuldeep Sengar’s Interim Bail Till January 20.Bachelor of Science (Honours / Honours with Research) in Applied Forensic Science with CSoFS-UKJAIN’s BSc hons forensic science program, integrated with the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences (CSoFS-UK), is recognised among the best BSc forensic science colleges in Bangalore. This course equips students with practical and theoretical expertise essential for modern crime investigation, focusing on hands-on experience and ethical principles.Also Read | Mobile Number Portability Requests: Around 13.4 Million Subscribers Request for MNP in October 2024, Says TRAI.Program Highlights* Immersive BSc forensic science syllabus covering evidence analysis, human anatomy, and crime scene investigation.* Hands-on exposure through crime scene visits and advanced forensic instrumentation.* Certification programs in cybersecurity and cyber forensics, preparing students for the growing demand for digital forensic expertise.Dr. Asha Rajiv, Director- School of Sciences, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), states, “Our program ensures that students are globally competitive. It develops scientific aptitude and prepares them for high-pressure situations in the forensic science industry.”Bachelor of Science (Honours / Honours with Research) (for Professional Courses) in Forensic ScienceDesigned for aspiring forensic experts, this program offers a deep dive into forensic techniques and modern investigation methods. The School of Sciences at JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) is lauded as one of the top BSc forensic science colleges in Karnataka, with a focus on cutting-edge research and practical application.Program Highlights* A robust curriculum blending BSc forensic science subjects like crime scene processing, genetics, and analytical techniques.* State-of-the-art laboratories offering hands-on training in forensic biology and analysis.* Additional certification programs in ballistics, handwriting analysis, and cyber forensics, making JAIN one of the best colleges for BSc forensic science in India.Dr. Reena Susan Philip- HOD- Forensic Science, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), states, “This program equips students with technical and analytical skills, ensuring they thrive in a fast-paced forensic science industry.”Career Enhancement ProgramsBoth programs include comprehensive career enhancement initiatives aimed at bridging the gap between academic learning and industry requirements. Students graduate as highly skilled professionals ready to tackle challenges in forensic science and criminology.Key Components:* Soft Skills Training: Workshops on communication, presentation, and personality development.* Real-world exposure: Internships and interactions with agencies like the CBI and IB.* Specialized Certifications: Programs in ballistics and cyber forensics enhance career readiness.Career OutcomesGraduates of these programs from one of the best BSc forensic science colleges in Bangalore have a plethora of opportunities:* Roles in law enforcement agencies, including the CBI and IB.* Positions in private detective agencies and cybersecurity firms.* Academic and research opportunities in forensic science education.The Bsc forensic science scope extends to higher studies and specialized fields, offering students a competitive edge in the global job market.Eligibility and AdmissionsApplicants must have completed 10+2 in Science with Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. JAIN’s programs are tailored for students seeking admission to the top BSc forensic science colleges in Bangalore.For inquiries, contact:* Website: www.jainuniversity.ac.in* Email: [email protected](ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

Business News | Empowering Future Innovators: Bachelor of Science (Honours with Research) in Data Science and Analytics

Science and Health

PNNBangalore (Karnataka) [India], December 23: In the rapidly evolving digital era, the demand for data-driven decision-making has made Data Science one of the most sought-after fields globally. Recognising this trend, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), School of Sciences, Bangalore, offers a cutting-edge Bachelor of Science (Honours / Honours with Research) in Data Science and Analytics, equipping students with global qualifications and practical expertise to excel in this dynamic domain.Also Read | England’s Squad for Women’s Ashes 2025 Announced: Ryana MacDonald-Gay, Freya Kamp, Linsey Smith Named; Heather Knight To Lead.A Transformative Program for Aspiring Data ScientistsThe BSc Data Science and Analytics program integrates foundational knowledge, technical prowess, and practical application, ensuring a well-rounded education. Accredited by the prestigious Institute of Analytics (IoA) UK, the course enables students to become graduate members of IoA, thereby earning an internationally recognised credential.Also Read | Digital Arrest in Bengaluru: Scamsters Impersonating As Police Dupe Software Engineer of INR 11.8 Crore Saying His Aadhaar Card Was Being Misused To Open Bank Accounts.Students gain proficiency in BSc Data Science subjects such as Python, R programming, descriptive and predictive analytics, and business problem-solving. The program delves into the BSc Data Science syllabus, encompassing advanced analytics, machine learning, and generative AI. It prepares students for real-world challenges through interdisciplinary learning, hands-on projects, and exposure to industry trends. As one of the top BSc Data Science colleges in Bangalore, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) takes pride in delivering a curriculum that empowers students to lead innovation across industries.Dr. Asha Rajiv, Director- School of Sciences- JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), shares, “Our BSc Data Science and Analytics program bridges the gap between theoretical learning and practical application. The curriculum is designed to nurture problem-solving skills and prepare students for the global data revolution.”Program Highlights* Innovative Curriculum: Emphasises critical thinking, data interpretation, and advanced analytics tools.* Professional Expertise: Gain hands-on experience with Python, R, Tableau, and SAS, enabling students to solve complex business problems.* Global Perspective: Recognised among the best BSc Data Science and analytics colleges in Bangalore, the program ensures students acquire global competence and technical expertise.* Career Preparation: Develop problem-solving skills to navigate challenges in a highly competitive data science market.Dr. Arathi Sudarshan, HOD- Data Analytics and Mathematical Sciences at JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), highlights, “Our focus on interdisciplinary education ensures that graduates are well-equipped with technical and analytical skills. This positions us among the best BSc Data Science colleges in Bangalore, fostering future-ready professionals.”Career Enhancement and OutcomesThe BSc Data Science course offers specialised career enhancement programs aligned with current industry standards. These include workshops on data modelling, machine learning, and business analytics. Students receive training in soft skills such as communication and leadership, ensuring they are job-ready.Graduates of this program are well-prepared for roles such as:* Data Analyst* Machine Learning Engineer* Business Analyst* Data Scientist* Business Intelligence Developer* Eligibility and AccessibilityAspiring candidates must meet the BSc Data Science eligibility criteria, which include passing the 10+2 examination in Science or Commerce with Mathematics or Statistics as core subjects. This program is available both online and offline, making it accessible to learners with diverse needs.Why Choose JAIN (Deemed-to-be University)?As one of the top BSc Data Science and analytics colleges in Bangalore, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) is committed to delivering quality education. Its unique blend of global qualifications and hands-on training makes it a preferred choice for students across the country. The program fosters innovation, creativity, and a comprehensive understanding of data science.Contact InformationWebsite: www.jainuniversity.ac.inEmail: [email protected](ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by PNN. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

A tale worth telling of four women scientists whose names you should know but don’t

Science and Health

Book Review Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History By Olivia CampbellPark Row Books: 368 pages, $32.99If you buy books on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. You might have heard of Lise Meitner. A native of Austria, she was the first woman to become a full professor of physics in Germany. She also helped discover nuclear fission. Yet the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for that accomplishment went solely to her longtime collaborator, Otto Hahn.Meitner battled misogyny and sexism at every stage of her illustrious career. But growing antisemitism and the 1933 Nazi takeover of Germany were an even higher-order problem. Although she was a convert to Lutheranism, her Jewish heritage endangered her. With the help of friends, she was able to flee in 1938 to neutral Sweden, where she was safe but scientifically isolated. “I can never discuss my experiments with anyone who understands them,” she wrote to fellow physicist Hedwig Kohn.In “Sisters in Science,” Olivia Campbell tells the intertwined stories of Meitner and three other notable, but lesser known, women physicists from Germany: Kohn, Hertha Sponer and Hildegard Stücklen. Only Kohn was Jewish, but the Third Reich’s hostility to women academics cost the other two jobs as well. Cover photo of “Sisters in Science” (Park Row Books) All three eventually made it to the United States, where they pursued their careers and continued to support one another (and Meitner too). Kohn, the last to escape, didn’t make it out of Europe until 1940. She endured two months of arduous travel through the Soviet Union and Japan and across the Pacific Ocean, barely surviving the ordeal.Theirs is an inspiring tale, and well worth telling — all the more so because, as Campbell notes in her dedication, so many other women academics were murdered by the Nazis. “Their absence haunts this book; the rippling impact of their loss affects us all,” she writes.But its intrinsic interest notwithstanding, “Sisters in Science” is a sometimes frustrating read. Part of the problem is its ambitious scope. Group biography is a tricky genre. Campbell has to meld four narrative arcs: parallel at times, overlapping at others, but also divergent. A more elegant stylist, or a true adept of narrative nonfiction, might have managed to integrate these stories more seamlessly. It doesn’t help that Campbell refers to her protagonists by their first names — and three of the four begin with the letter “H.”Explaining the physics to a lay audience is another challenge, perhaps an insuperable one. Campbell attempts it only nominally. The idea of fission, the splitting of atomic nuclei and resulting production of vast amounts of energy, is more or less intelligible. But the accomplishments of the other three physicists, who worked in spectroscopy, optics and astrophysics, are harder to grasp.The book also would have benefited from better copy editing and fact-checking. Whatever her bona fides as a science journalist, Campbell is not at home in Holocaust history. One example: Campbell locates Dachau, the Nazis’ first concentration camp, in Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin. Dachau opened in 1933 in the town of Dachau, near Munich. Oranienburg was actually the site of another eponymous camp and then, in 1936, Sachsenhausen. There are other errors and infelicities. Campbell continually refers to Kristallnacht, the November 1938 Nazi pogrom, as “the Kristallnacht.” A more serious lapse is her anachronistic suggestion that, in 1938, Meitner feared being deported to a “death camp.” Camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen were brutal, often murderous places, but in the 1930s, they mostly housed Nazi political opponents (some of them Jewish). Jews were not yet being deported from Germany, and the six death camps dedicated to their extermination — places such as Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau, all in Poland — did not become operational until the early 1940s.It is also somewhat crude, and arguably inaccurate, to say that Kristallnacht “exposed the Nazis’ true agenda for the Jewish people: they wanted them all dead.” Despite the growing virulence of anti-Jewish persecution, that goal was not yet clear, and not yet official policy. In fact, though some were killed, most of the 30,000 or so Jewish men rounded up and taken to concentration camps during Kristallnacht were released on the condition that they emigrate.Presumably Campbell is on firmer ground elsewhere — in noting, for instance, the difficulties that women scientists faced in Germany, including fights for pay, lab space and recognition; and in emphasizing the ways that they, and a few sympathetic male colleagues, helped one another endure, flourish and eventually escape.When she first became Hahn’s assistant in Berlin, for example, Meitner was exiled from the main lab and stuck in a basement workshop with no nearby restroom. She ultimately rose to head the physics department at Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, a post she retained even after her Nazi-era dismissal from the University of Berlin.Some male scientists were dead set against women. Others, such as Max Planck, welcomed collaboration from only the most exceptional of their female peers. One heroic supporter of women in science was the Nobel laureate James Franck. A German Jew, he resigned his post at the University of Göttingen before he could be fired, immigrated to the United States via Denmark, and was later instrumental in aiding colleagues, including women, who remained behind.Franck and Sponer, his onetime assistant, were especially close — both friends and scientific collaborators. After a stint at the University of Oslo, Sponer accepted a position at North Carolina’s Duke University in 1936, and began working with Edward Teller, the eventual creator of the hydrogen bomb, “on the vibrational excitation of polyatomic molecules by electron collisions.”Only after Franck’s wife died in 1942 did his long-germinating romance with Sponer come to fruition. He remained at the University of Chicago, and she at Duke. But in 1946, they married, and in Campbell’s sympathetic telling, experienced true happiness amid the sorrows around them.Julia M. Klein is a cultural reporter and critic in Philadelphia. More to Read

Medicinal Plant Biology Successfully Indexed in Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)

Science and Health

It is our great pleasure to announce that Medicinal Plant Biology has been included in Web of Science: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI). This inclusion represents global recognition by the academic and publishing community of the journal’s high quality and growth prospects, and is a significant milestone in strengthening the journal’s academic discourse and impact. After being indexed in ESCI, all articles in this journal from 2022 onwards will be searchable and citable by readers around the world in Web of Science. This achievement not only enhances articles visibility, but also positions them for potential indexing in higher-level databases such as the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).As an open-access journal, we are committed to promoting open-access content to a broader academic community, with dissemination through the WoS database being an indispensable component of this effort.About the journalMedicinal Plant Biology (https://www.maxapress.com/mpb) (e-ISSN 2835-6969), published by Maximum Academic Press, is an open access, online-only, rigorously peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to publishing original research articles, reviews, opinions, methods, letters, perspectives, and editorials on the studies related to all medicinal plants. Subjects include but are not limited to genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, biochemical, molecular, and omics-based techniques to investigate medicinal properties of plants.About Maximum Academic PressMaximum Academic Press (https://www.maxapress.com) (MAP) is an independent publishing company with focus on publishing golden open access academic journals. From 2020 to now, MAP has successfully launched 28 academic journals which cover the research fields of agriculture, biology, environmental sciences, medicine, statistics, engineering and humanities and social sciences.Professor Zong-Ming (Max) Cheng, chief editor and founder of MAP, who earned his Ph.D from Cornell University in 1991 and worked as an Assistant, Associate and Professor at North Dakota State University and University of Tennessee for over 30 years. Prior to establishing MAP, Dr. Cheng launched Horticulture Research (initially published by Nature Publishing Group) in 2014, Plant Phenomics (published by American Association of Advancement of Sciences, AAAS) in 2019, and BioDesign Research (published by AAAS) in 2020, and served as the Editor-in-Chief, Co-Editors-in-Chief, and the executive editor, respectively. Dr. Cheng wishes to apply all successful experiences in launching and managing these three high quality journals to MAP-published journals with highest quality and ethics standards.

Why A Positive Money Mindset Is Essential For Business Owners

Business News

One of the most critical aspects of building wealth and success as an entrepreneur is having the right money mindset. Developing a positive relationship with money and setting bold, ambitious goals can make all the difference in your journey.

The Problem with Reasonable Goals
Reasonable goals feel safe. They’re achievable, comfortable, and fit within the box of what we’re taught is possible. But here’s the problem: reasonable doesn’t inspire action. Reasonable doesn’t spark excitement. And reasonable won’t drive you to push through challenges when things get tough.

If Your Goals Don’t Drive You, What Will?
Entrepreneurship is hard. It takes resilience, grit, and determination to succeed. And when the going gets tough, it’s your vision, the big, exciting, slightly scary vision, that will keep you moving forward.

Think about the entrepreneurs who have changed industries and shaped the world; none of them were driven by modest ambitions. They believed in their vision when nobody else did. It’s this belief that gives you the resilience to take risks, the courage to face rejection, and the determination to keep showing up. When your goals are big enough to inspire you, they become the fuel that powers you through challenges and propels you toward success.

Money Mindset and Thinking Bigger
We can argue that money doesn’t buy happiness. But money does buy options, freedom, and security. And it gives you the ability to make a bigger impact.

A positive money mindset means:

Trusting that money is available to you.
Understanding that money is a tool, not a measure of your worth.
Recognizing that financial success empowers you to create change.

When you limit yourself to reasonable goals, you limit the opportunities that money can provide – not just for you, but for your family, your business, and the causes you care about.

Why Bold Goals Drive Success
Ambitious goals have a powerful psychological effect as they ignite excitement, fuel motivation, and push us to take bold action. Big goals force us to step out of our comfort zone and challenge ourselves and the status quo, which often leads to breakthroughs and extraordinary results. Through setting big goals, we tap into our potential and discover abilities we didn’t know we had. It’s through the personal drive that we build the perseverance needed to weather setbacks and keep going even when things get tough.

Big goals will also provide you clarity and focus. During challenging times it’s easy to lose momentum or question whether success is possible. But having a bold vision for your business keeps you anchored in your mission and reminds you why you started.
Stop Playing Small
The bottom line is that most people don’t fail because they aim too high and miss. They fail because they aim too low and reach their goal. Here’s the challenge: stop playing small. Stop letting other people’s fears and limitations dictate what’s possible for you. Dream bigger. Set the kind of goals that light a fire in your soul. And when someone tells you your goals are unreasonable, smile and say, “Watch me.”

The Daring, Original Movies That Actually Brought People to Theaters This Year

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

In Slate’s annual Movie Club, film critic Dana Stevens emails with fellow critics—for 2024, Bilge Ebiri, K. Austin Collins, Alison Willmore, and Odie Henderson—about the year in cinema.

Dear Bilge, Odie, Alison, and Kam,

Joan Didion once compared the work of film criticism to “petit-point on Kleenex”: an elaborate embroidery on a surface too ephemeral to sustain it. It’s a devastating burn for sure, of the sort Didion specialized in, but though the image may make every critic briefly question their life’s work, that doesn’t make it true. I keep a screenshot of that quote visible on a corner of my desktop–not to remind myself of the flimsiness of the linguistic needlework I’ve been doing for roughly 20 years, but because I think Didion was wrong and consider it a part of my job to show her so, if only out of spite.

The problem with the “petit-point on Kleenex” image is not just that it’s mean (though it is, so very mean), but that it gets the relationship between writer and subject backward. It’s week-to-week movie coverage that’s arguably the more transitory medium; when most people read film criticism, if they do at all, it’s about new releases they’re considering seeing that weekend. It’s the movies that are the most durable element in this piece of textile work we’re making.They have a way of enduring, in spite of the rise of streaming TV and the post-COVID slump in theater attendance, the writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023, and the havoc wreaked on the industry by [waves arms wildly] everything.

2024 offered no box-office feast on the order of last year’s Barbenheimer weekend—woe unto the wag who tried to make “Glicked” happen—but there was no shortage of movies that got people into theaters en masse, and occasionally even in character costumes. Most of the biggest hits were installments in recent or vintage blockbuster franchises (Dune: Part Two, Deadpool & Wolverine, Inside Out 2, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice). Then there were comparatively modest word-of-mouth successes, original midbudget genre films like Longlegs or Civil War or The Substance—none of which I cared for myself, but which, based on anecdotal evidence in my own life, quickly became the kind of movies that people tell each other they have to go see. And when you get down to the level of “art house” releases (“down” in the sense of absolute earnings only, not success relative to their size or, obviously, quality), quite a few critically praised indies did solid business given their limited releases and marketing budgets: Just look at the success of Challengers, Conclave, or Anora (which had the best per-screen opening of the year and the second-best one since COVID hit, and is still playing in theaters around the country months after its release).

Don’t get me wrong, the film industry is still in a precarious place. The effects of those 2023 strikes are making their way through the movie industry like rodents being digested by a snake. (I’m not sure exactly what the strikes’ effects have in common with rodents, but I feel pretty solid on the Hollywood/snake analogy.) A lot of the tentpole blockbusters that were meant to hold the big studios’ release calendars together—the next Batman, Avatar, and Mission: Impossible movies, for example—have been put off till 2025 or later because of disrupted production schedules. And quite a few of this year’s releases (Furiosa, The Fall Guy, Joker: Folie à Deux) failed to find the audiences that, a few years back, their A-list casts and/or status as prestige sequels would have seemed to guarantee. No one has yet figured out how to win back the audience share the theatrical film business has lost to home streaming services—though if it’s any consolation, the streamers are also at a loss as to how to hold on to viewers in a world of infinite choice and constant customer churn.

But like … most of the above has been true for nearly five years now, and some of it for much longer, and yet somehow here people are still going to movies, talking about them on the way down the multiplex escalator, debating their merits and hidden meanings over dinner, getting annoyed with their omnipresent Oscar campaigns. So I will dispense with further dithering about the meaning of our jobs as film critics and get on with doing mine, starting by throwing out a question to all of you (but first to Bilge, as he’s next in the lineup) about the element of scale in the movies of 2024.

Related From Slate

Dana Stevens
The 10 Best Movies of 2024
Read More

Scale, not size: that is to say, the relative distinctions between a film’s ambitions, its budget, its narrative sprawl (or compression), and its running time.

I noticed, sizing up the year’s films for my own list, that many of the movies that left a mark played with scale in some way. Bilge, at least two of the movies on your list, Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1 and Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes, were certified sprawlers, running three hours or thereabouts, with stories that spanned generations. My own list contains one movie, Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic The Brutalist, that might be seen as a critique of both its subject’s and its director’s toxic ambition, a vast edifice that even a fan like me must admit has significant cracks in its foundation. And two of the year’s biggest hits, Dune: Part Two and Wicked: Part I, asked audiences to sit in the theater for around two hours and 40 minutes without blinking an eye, as did the brilliant Romanian comedy Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, a film that made my Top 10 list and was at the very top of Alison’s. Yet other great films this year were notable for the deceptive modesty of their scale, like Mike Leigh’s slender yet powerful character study Hard Truths. Another of the mini-yet-mighty entries on my list, the indie chamber piece Good One, is almost Buddhist in its simplicity, but it marks the debut of a major talent in writer-director India Donaldson.

In its own way, each of these movies plays with our fixed notions of cinematic scale to pose the question of what movies can and should do: How much can they ask for from their viewers, in terms of patience, attention, bladder capacity, and time, and how much can audiences ask in return from them, in terms of creating new worlds to imagine ourselves into or giving us the capacity and perspective to reimagine our own? Bilge, I think of you as a man who appreciates a massive movie—you were the critic who got me into the theater to see the restoration of Sergei Bondarchuk’s seven-hour adaptation of War and Peace a few years back. Which of the giant honking epics of 2024 swept you off your feet, and which just made your buns ache in the theater?

Needle poised over my Kleenex, I remain,

Dana

P.S. My Top 10, in alphabetical order:

Anora

The Brutalist

Challengers

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World

Eno

Good One

Hard Truths

Janet Planet

Love Lies Bleeding

No Other Land

Runners-up:

All We Imagine as Light

Black Box Diaries

Close Your Eyes

Dahomey

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

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Manderley Press: meet the real Rebeka behind the heritage publisher

Arts & Culture, Books

Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca inspired the naming of Manderley Press, started four years ago by Rebeka Russell. “I’d had the idea for quite a while. I’d been bothering everyone, going ’What should I call this press?’ Everything I came up with had already been taken. Then, one day, I realised, it has to be Manderley,” she says.
Manderley, of course, is the impressive house in Cornwall in which du Maurier’s Maxim de Winter lives – along with two wives, the unnamed narrator and the late Rebecca. Manderley features in the novel’s famous opening line. The name is highly appropriate, because “[Manderley] only publishes books inspired by a particular building or place. It’s the theme that runs through all the publications.”
The formula is simple: Russell finds a work by a late author which is either out of copyright, or gets permission from the author’s estate to republish it. She then commissions an introduction by a well-known author who has some association with the place or building in the work, and commissions a beautiful illustration for the cover. “The person who writes introduction, and the illustrator who designs the cover, have to be linked to the place in the book in some way,” she says.
Manderley titles include Henry James’ Washington Square, featuring an introduction by Colm Tóibín; The House in Cornwall by Noel Streatfeild, with an introduction by Guardian journalist Lucy Mangan; and a new collection of stories by Joan Aiken, featuring an introduction by novelist Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
Having worked in-house at Thames & Hudson, Russell went freelance after having children, mostly working within arts and heritage publishing, before setting up Manderley in 2020. “I’d had the idea for Manderley for a long while, so it’s slightly embarrassing that it took the global pandemic for me to do it. I found myself three months into the pandemic in 2020 with no work, because museums and galleries had closed,” she said.
“I had a moment where I thought, ‘I can either completely retrain or just bring all the strands of my career together so far’. I’ve worked in heritage publishing. I’ve worked in arts publishing with museums. I’ve been a bookseller, mostly at Daunt Books, while I was a student. It seemed like an opportunity to bring it all together. When I set up Manderley, it was literally at my kitchen table, while everyone else in my family was in their rooms on their computers. But it started coming together,” she says.