All posts tagged: important

KT Tunstall: ‘I was a totally crap pop star… It’s important to kill your idea of what you should be’ | Ents & Arts News

KT Tunstall: ‘I was a totally crap pop star… It’s important to kill your idea of what you should be’ | Ents & Arts News

Published by skeptic

Twenty years on from her breakout hit Suddenly I See, KT Tunstall is refreshingly candid about her early career: “I was a totally crap pop star,” she tells Sky News. The Scottish singer-songwriter may have a Brit and Ivor Novello to her name – won the year after she outsold every other female artist in the UK – but she’s not taking any prisoners. Image: KT Tunstall performing in 2023. Pic: AP Images “You have an idea of what you should be as an artist, I think it’s really, really important to kill that.” She goes on: “The whole point of being an artist is that you never know what you’re going to be, and you should never assume that you know. “I think there’s something much more divine in the kind of growth of yourself as an artist that it’s not your place to know what’s going to be.” Image: Emma Flynn plays Cher. Pic: Pamela Raith Photography Sharing a private thought, she admits: “I don’t think I’ve ever said it out loud, but …

Your pupils change size as you breathe – here’s why this new discovery is important

Your pupils change size as you breathe – here’s why this new discovery is important

Published by skeptic

You have probably heard the saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but now it turns out that they are also connected to how we breathe. Scientists have long studied the size of our pupils to understand attention, emotion and even medical conditions. But now, new research has surprisingly revealed that they change size in sync with our breathing. Our pupils are never static; they constantly adjust in response to both external and internal factors. The most well known is that they control how much light enters the eye, just like a camera aperture. You can easily test this yourself: look into a mirror and shine a light into your eye, and you’ll see your pupils shrink. This process directly affects our visual perception. Larger pupils help us to detect faint objects, particularly in our peripheral vision, while smaller pupils enhance sharpness, improving tasks like reading. Indeed, this reflex is so reliable that doctors use it to assess brain function. If a pupil fails to react to light, it could signal a …

Your most important customer may be AI

Your most important customer may be AI

Published by skeptic

For example, Meta’s Llama model may perceive your brand as exciting and reliable, whereas OpenAI’s ChatGPT may view it as exciting but not necessarily reliable. Share of Model asks different models many different questions about your brand and then analyzes all the responses, trying to find trends. “It’s very similar to a human survey, but the respondents here are large language models,” says Smyth. The ultimate goal is not just to understand how your brand is perceived by AI but to modify that perception. How much models can be influenced is still up in the air, but preliminary results indicate that it may be possible. Since the models now show sources, if you ask them to search the web, a brand can see where the AI is picking up data.  “We have a brand called Ballantine’s. It’s the No. 2 Scotch whisky that we sell in the world. So it’s a product for mass audiences,” says Gokcen Karaca, head of digital and design at Pernod Ricard, which owns Ballantine’s and a customer utilizing Share of …

Did LIGO just see its most important gravitational wave ever?

Did LIGO just see its most important gravitational wave ever?

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Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. It’s hard to believe, but here in 2025, we’re less than a full decade into the era of gravitational wave astronomy. It was only in September of 2015 that Advanced LIGO, humanity’s first gravitational wave observatory capable of detecting the realistic gravitational waves produced in the Universe, came online. Within days, the first astrophysical signal — from two merging black holes — was detected. In the subsequent decades, we’ve now seen hundreds of gravitational wave events: events that signify the merger of massive, compact objects like black holes and neutron stars. LIGO has also been joined by additional gravitational wave detectors, including the Virgo detector in Europe and the KAGRA detector in Japan. Combined, they enable us to not only detect gravitational waves, but to localize them in the sky. One gravitational wave event, in 2017, even came along with an electromagnetic counterpart: a …

1-54 Turns Marrakech Into One of Africa’s Most Important Art Hubs

1-54 Turns Marrakech Into One of Africa’s Most Important Art Hubs

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Since its founding in 2018, the Marrakech edition of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair has been instrumental in raising the profile of this Moroccan city, long a tourist hub. But the fair, now in its sixth edition, is only one part of an ecosystem that has made Marrakech into one of the Africa’s most important art hubs. “Marrakech has welcomed, through 1-54, large groups of collectors and institutions, and it’s had a huge impact of the Moroccan ecosystem with galleries opening second locations in Marrakech,” 1-54 founder Touria El Glaoui told ARTnews ahead of the opening of its second VIP day. “The Moroccan art market is very strong. I’ve been saying that loud and clear from even before we started the Marrakech fair. Casablanca, Rabat, Tangiers, and Marrakech [each] have about five or six strong galleries.”   Related Articles Though 1-54 started in London and then expanded to New York, El Glaoui’s goal was always to launch a fair on the continent. Because of Marrakech’s attractiveness as a tourist destination and its luxurious hotels …

The CMB: The most important discovery in cosmic history

The CMB: The most important discovery in cosmic history

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Sign up for the Starts With a Bang newsletter Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all Notice: JavaScript is required for this content. There have been a few momentous discoveries throughout the history of science that have literally revolutionized our understanding of the Universe. The relationship between electricity and magnetism, the deflection of starlight by the gravity of the Sun, the fact that matter and energy are quantized into individual packets and particles, and the fact that the Universe is expanding were all examples of extraordinary discoveries that fundamentally changed how we viewed the Universe. And yet, there’s one discovery that’s arguably even more important than all of those in our quest to understand the nature of reality and the origin and history of our Universe: the CMB, or the cosmic microwave background. Discovered quite by accident in the mid-1960s, its discovery not only validated the Big Bang while refuting all then-viable competitors, but ongoing, more refined measurements have taught us an enormous suite of cosmic lessons …

American studies degrees are declining in popularity – but the subject has never been more important

American studies degrees are declining in popularity – but the subject has never been more important

Published by skeptic

We’re witnessing a momentous period in US history and culture. A second Donald Trump presidency promises to be just as turbulent, if not more so, than his first term in office. A proper understanding of how the US works is going to be vital in years to come. The UK will need people with this knowledge in politics, business and in the media. But given the importance and influence the US holds, it’s puzzling that the popularity of the American studies degree in the UK is in decline. Data from universities admissions service UCAS shows that the number of accepted undergraduate applications in the subject field of American and Australasian studies has fallen from 410 in 2019 to just 140 in 2024. Many universities, including prestigious Russell Group institutions, no longer offer American studies at undergraduate level. The course has closed at the University of Birmingham and is not being offered in 2025-26 at the University of Nottingham, for instance. Declining influence A hostility from the UK government towards humanities degrees may have played a …

The 4 Most Important Cultures in Ancient Anatolia

The 4 Most Important Cultures in Ancient Anatolia

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  The peoples of ancient Anatolia developed several cultures that, although interconnected, were also distinct in several ways. Beginning with the Hittites in the Bronze Age and ending with the Lydians in the Classical period, the Anatolian peoples traded, fought, and engaged in diplomacy with each other and other notable ancient Near Eastern peoples. The Anatolian peoples truly affected the course of ancient history in many ways. The following is a survey of the five most important Anatolian cultures in chronological order: the Hittites, the Arzawa, the Phrygians, and the Lydians.   1. The Hittites  Gold Hittite Amulet, Hittite, 1400-1200 BCE (Hittite New Kingdom), via the British Museum, London   Before beginning this survey, it is important to understand where and what Anatolia is. Anatolia is the name that historians and archeologists of ancient Near Eastern history apply to the landmass that is roughly equivalent to the modern nation-state of Turkey. The Hittites were Indo-Europeans who arrived in Anatolia in the late third millennium BCE and by the middle of the second millennium, they had …

7 Important Works by Cindy Sherman

7 Important Works by Cindy Sherman

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  Cindy Sherman’s work has continuously interrogated the role of mass media in the construction of identity. She is often associated with the Pictures Generation, a loose group of artists in the USA who explored the impact of new media on life and culture. Through dynamic self-portraiture, Sherman’s work explores themes of identity, gender, and the representation of women in society. Throughout her career, she has challenged and deconstructed the notions of the self and the other, employing costumes, makeup, and props to transform herself into a myriad of characters.   1. Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #21 Untitled Film Still #21 by Cindy Sherman, 1978. Source: MoMA, New York.   The Film Still series explores the language of cinema and the construction of female identity in modern media. In Untitled Film Still #21, we see a woman (Sherman herself), alone in the city, her eyes scanning warily, searching for something. The city looms behind her—a threatening presence…or perhaps a hopeful Utopia? Sherman explores the trope of the young girl, new to the city, finding …

Showing Up Is Important – TheHumanist.com

Showing Up Is Important – TheHumanist.com

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Humanist advocacy can be exhausting. There are always things that need to happen, projects that seem to never get done, challenges that arise, and societal issues to better understand so we can promote solutions. It’s hard to stay motivated when we feel like nobody cares and so many are against us. But it’s so empowering to hear how important humanism is to people around the world and engage with others currently doing, or interested in doing, the work. At a recent rally in Washington, DC, the American Humanist Association staff and volunteers tabling were greeted with overwhelming appreciation for being there, providing free materials, sharing about our work, directing people to local groups in their region (some were impressed we have communities in their area), and listening to their stories. We shared the space with the Washington Area Secular Humanists, a chapter of the AHA and affiliate of American Atheists, so the table had buttons, stickers, postcards, and signs for secular and atheist voters, supporters of LGBTQ+ equality, protesting Project 2025, understanding humanist values, and …