Once again all of the good bits this month are in the life sciences but at least it’s heartening news.
Among the most positive developments is a gene-editing therapy for certain patients with high cholesterol. It applies only for those with so-called gain-of-function mutations of the PCSK9 gene and the enzyme it produces. Such patients often have high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, leading to heart disease. The VERVE-102 therapy consists of a single intravenous infusion of a messenger RNA encoding an adenine base-editor protein and a guide RNA targeting PCSK9. The current is very small and observed patients over a very short duration only. Nonetheless it has so far proved to be safe and extremely effective, lowering LDL levels by 9% to 62%. I consider this to be a fantastic example of the coming wave of gene therapies.
Doomsayers often warn that rising life expectancy will inevitably impose unbearable pressures on healthcare and retirement costs. This paper focusing on thirty years worth of data from the US however points out, among other things, that while demographic changes inevitably lead to higher Social Security spending, Medicare spending has not increased by as much as previously expected. This is attributed to the fact that the increased life expectancy were entirely healthy. I consider this to be great news that societies can indeed adapt to a world with longer human lifespans in an economically sustainable manner.
This next oneI included more because of the clever way that the project exploited a natural experiment rather than any specific findings. It’s about the Pakistan Genome Resource, a biobank established to expand the breadth of the available data on human genetic variation by sequencing the genomes of hundreds of thousands of participants across Pakistan. Specifically because of a high incidence of cousin marriages in the country, it is more common to discover instances of genes in which both of the alleles inherited from parents are of the identical loss-of-function variants. Effectively these are natural versions of ‘knockouts’ in which the gene has been turned off. This understandably makes it a valuable treasure trove of genetic data, obliviating the need to deliberately knock out genes to study the effects on human development.
Finally the last bit of news is just plain weird without any real explanation so far. Even the discovery was pure happenstance, coming from videos taken to study how many people could share a space while keeping a safe distance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers simply noticed from these videos that crowds overwhelmingly walked in an anticlockwise direction. Further experiments yielded similar results and the bias seems to hold true across cultures, right-handedness, men or women and so on. So far no one knows why this bias exists though one theory is that it stems from human biomechanics as our bodies aren’t perfectly symmetrical.
It continues to astound me how perfectly Chloé Zhao grasps the tenets of Western culture despite being Chinese. What could be more central to the canon of Western culture than William Shakespeare? Adapted from a recent novel, this film further takes the bold step of not placing the playwright nor his plays at its center but instead Shakespeare’s wife and children. The result is a stupendously creative reimagining of what the plays might mean and one of the most emotionally affecting film I’ve seen in a while.
This French science-fiction film has only middling reviews and after watching it, that feels fair. It’s very loosely based on the Henry James’ novella The Beast in the Jungle but has none of its elegance. It takes its time to very clunkily make a trite point that captures little of the essence of its inspiration. At its best, there are brief moments that recall the surreality of David Lynch. But these are outweighed by the mediocrity or downright cringiness of many scenes. This one gets a thumbs-down for me and not just because of the facile anti-AI messaging.
I’m a huge fan of the storytelling games made by Inkle and what’s more this is a prequel to Overboard! so I just had to get it. I wasn’t too fond of the earlier game as I found it too short but I did like the story and the characters. This game too has rather little content but the effective playing time is lengthened by it being significantly more difficult. It’s difficult enough that I would consider it a puzzle game rather than just a storytelling game.
It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a proper Hong Kong action movie though this may not quite qualify. It’s set in Macau and mainly uses Mandarin with a odd smattering of English. It’s even adapted from a Hong Kong movie from not too long ago. It’s overly long, is too hung up on twisty plot points and escalates the scale of the action to absurd levels. Nonetheless it genuinely is an spectacular action flick, probably Jackie Chan’s best in years, and with Leung Ka-Fai turning in a fantastic performance as a scarily threatening villain.
This horror film has enough of a hold on the public imagination to be regularly talked about even years after its release. I hesitated to watch it as the reviews are middling and director Ari Aster’s work is inconsistent for me. In the end I’m very glad I did despite it being too long and psychologically less complex than it needs to be, as this is one of the rare horror films that can aspire to break out of the confines of its genre. The setting featuring intense, unrelenting sunlight and bright, cheery colors instantly marks it as being unique, proving that horror doesn’t have to exist only in the dark.
This series has been on my radar for a while due to it supposedly being about the succession of a company and the fact that it’s loosely based on the Murdoch family. As usual, I like to wait until the whole series is complete and so here we are. The bad news is that this is not really about business as all as it tends to gloss over the day-to-day of corporate life. Instead it’s all about the family drama. The good news is that it’s very good at it and all of the characters are villains that you’ll love to hate. I do worry that the pattern will become too repetitive but for now I enjoy it and will be down for the second season.
