The Browser - City Life

The City And The Limiting Virtues

Sara Hendren | Undefended/Undefeated | 6th April 2024

How to notice limiting virtues in built spaces: the things you can and cannot do, by design. Libraries have a “gradation of limiting virtues”: meeting spaces, really quiet rooms, floor-to-ceiling windows and activity rooms for children, high-backed chairs and booths for teens to do “semi-sedentary socialising”. Cafés outlaw laptops to avoid becoming offices and chapels provide “that rarest limiting thing: silence” (1,600 words)

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How Deep Does Life Go?

James Powell | MIT Press Reader | 8th April 2024

History of deep-sea explorations, prior to which, scientists believed that photosynthesis was essential to support life — hence, no living creatures in the dark ocean depths. In 1977, 24 dives along the Galápagos Rift revealed many life forms far beyond sunlight’s reach. The answer was chemosynthesis, by which bacteria oxidise inorganic materials, like hydrogen sulphide, to sustain higher life forms (2,900 words)

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