La Sagrada Familia:
10 Facts To Know Before Visiting Gaudí’s Masterpiece Construction began in 1882, Antoni Gaudí’s pride and joy is
still not complete. However, the finish
line is in sight, with an expected completion date of 2026-2028. Six additional towers have yet to be added,
including a 170-metre (560-ft) central tower.
Hopefully it won’t take another 135 years, but you never know--it’s an
incredibly complex building. Along with
six other properties in and around Barcelona, Sagrada Familia was added to the
list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites under the collective entry of “Works of
Gaudí”. The other buildings are Parque
Güell, Palacio Güell, Casa Mila, Casa Vicens, Casa Batlló, and the Crypt in
Colonia Güell. Read more and see
pictures at https://realbarcelonatours.com/blog/la-sagrada-familia-10-facts-before-visiting
A practical creation that transports you from one
destination to the next, stairs rarely garner much attention beyond being
cumbersome to climb. But staircases are one of the oldest
architectural creations, dating to the second millennium B.C. Ancient steps provided strategic ways to
traverse rough terrain, and some believed they connected Earth to the heavens. Artists and designers throughout the ages
have transformed stairs beyond mere functionality. With towering spirals, daring designs, and
classic ornaments, staircases have become statement pieces and dramatic works
of art that are destinations in their own right. (See 24 unconventional art
destinations around the world)
Starlight Williams https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/features/photography/discover-21-worlds-most-spectacular-staircases/
Stairways can leave just as much of
an impact on your memory as the places they lead you. Some are so eye-catching they look like they
belong in an M.C. Escher painting, while other stairs are downright
intimidating. Matt Bell Link to slideshow of the 20 scariest
staircases in the world including Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and "The
Exorcist" steps in Washington, D.C. at https://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/worlds-scariest-stairs
In 2010, when Lilli Holst scraped a lump of soil from
the underside
of a rotting eggplant, she
had no idea that this act would help to save the life of a British teenager,
eight years later and 6,000 miles away. Holst, an undergraduate at
the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, was participating in a
project in which students search through local soil samples for
new phages—viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Holst found several, and gave them all
names. In a worm farm, she
discovered Liefe. In
an aloe garden, Lixy. And
from that decaying eggplant, Muddy.
All three viruses infect a common bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis. And all of them were new to science. Samples of Muddy and the other phage viruses
made their way to the lab of Graham Hatfull, a phage expert at the University
of Pittsburgh. He stored them in a
freezer, along with at least 10,000 others that had also been discovered and
named by students: MarioKart, TGIPhriday, Chupacabra, Benvolio, ChickenNugget, IAmGroot,
and more. They were sitting there, in
the cold, when in late 2017 Hatfull got a call from doctors at Great Ormond
Street Hospital in London. The London
team, led by pediatrician Helen Spencer, had been treating a 15-year-old girl
with cystic fibrosis—a genetic disorder that leads to
persistent lung infections. To prepare
for a double lung transplant, the girl had been taking drugs to suppress her
immune system, and these allowed an already-present microbe called Mycobacterium abscessus to run amok
through her body. She had new lungs, but
also heavy infections in her liver, limbs, buttocks, torso, and the surgical
wound on her chest. Antibiotics weren’t
working, and the outlook looked grim.
The team put her on a palliative care plan. But Hatfull has spent decades studying
phages that attack mycobacteria—the group to which the girl’s life-threatening
microbes belonged. Her doctors wanted to
know if he had anything in his arsenal that might kill those particular
strains. He looked in his database—and
found Muddy. In laboratory tests, Muddy
efficiently destroyed the exact strain of M.
abscessusthat was itself destroying the London patient’s body. “It was good that we found one,” says Hatfull.
“But it was bad that we only found one,” since bacteria can easily evolve to
resist any single phage. His team
eventually found two more phages—BPs and ZoeJ—that had the potential to
kill M. abscessus, but weren’t
doing it very well. Some phages kill the
bacteria they infect by reproducing frantically and bursting out in fatal
fashion, but others opt for a more tranquil existence of harmlessly hiding in
their hosts. BPs and ZoeJ naturally go
for the latter path, so Hatfull’s team modified them by deleting the gene that
keeps them peaceful. Unrestrained, these
modified microbes could kill M. abscessus as
well as Muddy. Read: The viruses that eavesdrop on their hosts In June, 2018 the London team started injecting all three phages—one natural
and two modified—into their patient. She
didn’t experience any major side effects, and after a month of twice-daily
doses, the infection in her chest began to disappear. Shortly after, her liver cleared up. After six months, almost all the other lesions
had faded. “It’s not like she’s out of
the woods in the sense that she has cystic fibrosis and a new set of lungs,”
Hatfull says, “but she’s in very good general health.” Ed Yong
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/engineered-viruses-cured-a-dying-girls-infections/589075/ Thank you, Muse reader!
The Best “Actors Playing Themselves” Cameos in Movie
History
In ‘Always Be My Maybe,’
Keanu Reeves joined an elite group that includes Eminem, Michael Cera, and Bob
Barker. https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/6/3/18649763/actors-playing-themselves-cameos-keanu-reeves-always-be-my-maybe
The flags in Bernie
Taupin's artworks come from many sources. Most are donated by collectors who prize his
bold, multimedia 3D assemblages. “I get
a lot of flags that have flown over businesses, flown over people’s houses,
that belonged to collectors’ relatives or parents. They want to see them put into my work,” says
Taupin. From
June 7 to 30, 2019, art lovers can see how the British-born Taupin (who became
a U.S. citizen in 1990) uses the flag in his biggest-ever exhibit. "Bernie Taupin: The Artist, The Raconteur and His
Blowtorch" launches with at least 26 assemblage and sculpture pieces at
the 12,000-square-foot Galerie Michael at 2 Rodeo in Beverly Hills. Some
of the flags are covered in found objects like barbed wire or rough twine, and,
yes, some are blowtorched. To people who
say that the artist behind "Candle in the Wind" and 29 other top 40
U.S. hits is disrespecting the flag, Taupin responds: "I find it ironic—the correct way to
dispose of a flag is actually to burn it. I am resurrecting them after they've served
their purpose." One piece even has on it the official exact wording
of how to properly dispose of a flag by burning it. Degen Pener
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bernie-taupin-debut-art-collection-created-american-flags-1215495
Aspen’s Bauhaus Ball toasts art movement’s centennial in 2019 by
June 5 through July 18: ‘Great Ideas of Bauhaus’ print exhibition, Red
Brick Center for the Arts; June 7-July 5: ‘Bauhaus Seen: Paintings by Richard Carter + Dave Durrance,’
R2 Gallery, Carbondale; June 10-14: Bauhaus
to Your House furniture workshop, Anderson Ranch Arts Center; June 11: Bauhaus Evening, Red Brick Center; June 12: Aspen Institute Landscape Tour; June 13-Aug.
15: ‘Return to Simplicity,’ Colorado
Mountain College Aspen; July 1-2020: ‘A
Total Work of Art: Bauhaus-Bayer-Aspen,’ Resnick Gallery at Aspen Institute; July
1-2020: ‘Bauhaus 1919-1928,’ Paepcke
Gallery at Aspen Institute More info at bauhausaspen100.org Andrew Travers
350th anniversary observed
in 2019 Rembrandt Around the World: Exhibitions on View by Abigail R.
Esman See many graphics at
https://museumnetwork.sothebys.com/en/articles/rembrandt-around-the-world-exhibitions-on-view-in-2019 See also https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/all-the-rembrandts-exhibition
Flexitarianism or 'casual
vegetarianism' is an
increasingly popular, plant-based diet that claims to reduce your carbon
footprint and improve your health with an eating regime that's
mostly vegetarian yet still allows for the occasional meat dish. Emer Delaney
Read more and link to recipes at https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/what-flexitarian-diet The word flexitarian combines the
two words flexible and vegetarian.
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2107
June 7, 2019
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