Some books to look forward to in 2024

The first few months of 2024 are piled with exciting and interesting reads . If you’re looking to get a jump ahead on the holds from your local library, here are just a few books we ‘re looking forward to.

James by Percival Everett

Celebrated author Percival Everett gives us Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s point of view. It’s far from a straight re-telling, though. Instead, Everett (but off his 2001 book Erasure being adapted into the film American Fiction) uses the beats of the original story to give us a send up of language and race.(Pub. March.19)

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

This standalone fantasy was inspired by the best-selling author’s own family history. It takes place during the Spanish Golden Age and follows a servant, hiding the fact that she can perform miracles. (Pub. Apr.9)

Private Equity by Carrie Sun

A memoir (回忆录) about the daughter of Chinese immigrants who ended up becoming an assistant to a billionaire hedge fund founder. It’s an examination of the hustle and tiring lifestyle that spreads American work culture, and the costs of extreme wealth. (Pub. Feh.13)

Legacy by Uché Blackstock

Uché Blackstock has had a long career in medicine as a doctor and as a professor of emergency medicine. Her account follows her growing up wanting nothing more than to be doctor, and discovering all parts of the systemic issues that lend to poorer health outcomes for Black Americans. (Pub, Jan.23)

Sau Hoyin, a 16-year-old student at Hong Kong International School, has devoted the past seven years to writing fiction. He has already published two novels, and a third is on the way. Sau’s journey as a writer began in the 4th grade when he started a school “passion project”, leading him to create his first novel Pym. This story follows Luke Connors, an ordinary boy who grew into a brave fighter against evil.

Sau’s fiction evolved with his own personal growth. At the age of 13, he created Pyro 2. a story when Connors faces challenges that mirror Sau’s struggles with math. “I tried to overcome these challenges on my own at first hut finally found that I need to seek the aid of others,” he said. In the novel, Connors learns that in moments of great challenges. seeking help from those around him is a test ament (证明) to growth. Currently, Sau is working on Pyro 3, a project enriched by his global travels and diverse cultural experiences. “I treat writing as a way to record my life and express myself. It also helps me to think deeply about various issues,” he said.

Sau spends two to three hours on weekends on his writing and around two hours daily during breaks. To practice his skills, Sau also joined a literary club at school, exchanging insights into his fiction with his peers.

“In arts and literature class, our teacher also nurtures (培养) our creativity by teaching creative poetry.” Sau added. For instance, inspired by the English language poem Show With Buddha he learned in class, he wrote Playing Saxophone With the Statue of Liberty in d imagined the statue dropped her torch or a moment, playing jour while thinking about whether the truths of American liberty are really held or not.

Sau also shares his essays and poetry on his personal website and takes part in writing competitions. This summer, he won the Harbinger Prize awarded by Harbingers’Magazine, a weekly journal in the US.

Next year, Sau will start university and is resolute in his decision to major in literature. “For me, literature is a utopia (乌托邦) where I can not only express myself but also enjoy the beauty of language, its purity and its lasting power.” he said.

We breathe, eat and drink tiny particles of plastic. But are these in the body harmless. dangerous or somewhere in between? A small study published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine raises more questions than it answers about how these hits might affect the heart.

The study involved 257 people who had surgery to clear blocked blood vessels in their necks. Using two methods, researchers found evidence of plastics-mostly invisible nanoplastics — in 150 patients and no evidence of plastics in 107 patients. They followed these people for three years. During that time, 30 or 20% of those with plastics had a heart attack, stroke or died from any cause, compared to 8 or about 8% of those with no evidence of plastics.

The researchers also found more evidence of inflammation (炎症) in the people with the plastic bits in their blood vessels. Inflammation is the body’s response to injury and is thought to raise the risk of heart attacks and stroke.

“I hope that the alarming message will raise the consciousness of citizens, especially governments, to finally become aware of the importance of the health of our planet.” said Dr. Raffaele Marfella of the University of Campania in Italy.

Nevertheless, the study was very small and looked only at people with narrowed arteries (动脉), who were already at risk for heart attack and stroke. The patients with the plastics had more heart disease, diabetes and high cholesterol (胆固醇) than the patients without plastics. They were more likely to be men and more likely to be smokers. The researchers tried to adjust for these risk factors during their statistical analysis, but they may have missed important differences between the groups that could account for the results. This kind of study cannot prove that the plastics caused their problems.

“More research is needed and it is the first report suggesting a connection between microplastics and nanoplastics with disease in humans,” said Dr. Philip Landrigan of Boston College. Other scientists have found plastic bits in the lungs, liver, blood, and breast milk, “It does not prove cause and effect, but it suggests cause and effect,” he said, “And it needs urgently to be either confirmed or disproven (反驳) by other studies done by other investigators in other populations.”

Imagine a busy restaurant: dishes clattering, music playing and people talking loudly. It’s a wonder that anyone in that environment can focus enough. In an earlier study. researchers established that people can separately control how much they focus (by enhancing relevant information) and how much they filter (by tuning out distraction).

Recently, Neuroscientist Ritz compared the process to muscle coordination (协调) in his study: “In the same way that we bring together more than 50 muscles to perform a physical task like using chopsticks, our study found we can coordinate different forms of attention in order to perform brain activities.”

To explore this, Ritz administered a cognitive task to participants while measuring their brain activity. Participants saw a mass of green and purple dots moving left and right. The tasks involved distinguishing between the movement and colors of the dots. For example, participants in one exercise had to select which color was in the majority for the rapidly moving dots with purple and green percentages close to 50/50.

“You can regard the intraparietal sulcus (脑顶内沟) as a radio dial with two knobs. one for focusing and one for filtering,” Ritz said, “When the anterior cingulate cortex (前扣带皮层) recognizes that, for instance, motion is making the task more difficult, it directs the intraparietal sulcus to adjust the filtering knob to reduce the sensitivity to motion and might also direct the intraparetal sulcus to adjust the focusing knob to increase the sensitivity to color. Now the relevant brain regions are less sensitive to motion and more sensitive to the color, so the participant can make better selection.

Nowadays, much is still being explored about attention coordination. A partnership with scientists at Brown University is investigating focus and-filter strategies in patients with treatment-resistant depression; one study co-led by Rita and Brown Ph,D. students examines the impact of financial rewards and penalties (处罚) on focus -and-filter strategies. “We all know there is still a considerable journey ahead.” Ritz said.