The best of 'the best of' 2022
The best of 'the best of' 2022
A roundup of 2022's roundups
Hello Eclectic Spacewalkers!
I hope each of you are having a wonderous holiday season and a great start to the New Year. :)
Below is a ‘best of’ roundup of eclectic links from 2022. Science, space, psychedelics, problem-solving, environmental review, debates, photos, art, music, movies, books, predictions, and much more! Let us know of any that we missed and/or what was your favorite moment of this past year in the comments.
Next week, I will be sending out a much needed (and long overdue) update on Eclectic Spacewalk: where we have been, what we are up to, and what is in store for the future.
Looking forward to a awe inspiring 2023 with all of you.
—Ad Astra
Table of Contents:
Quanta Magazine’s Biggest Breakthroughs
Top 14 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2022 Edition via PLOS SciComm
Eight Times Science Exceeded Expectations in 2022 via The New Yorker
8 Fascinating Discoveries of the James Webb Telescope via ColdFusion
The Top 10 Psychedelic Science Studies Of 2022 via Healing Maps
22 Problems Solved in 2022 via Wendover Productions
The Bright Side of 2022 via Zachary Karabell
Environmental review of 2022: another mile on the ‘highway to climate hell’ via The Guardian
2022 Empowering Libraries Year in Review via Internet Archive
Project Censored's State of the Free Press 2023 via Prospect.org
Best of our 2022 content! via the Institute of Art and Ideas
Year in Review via IntelligenceSquared Debates
TIME's Top 100 Photos of 2022
The Best Art I Saw in 2022 via Kevin Buist
The 10 Best Movies of 2022 via Like Stories of Old
The Top 10 Movies of 2022 via Thomas Flight
The best books of 2022 via The Guardian
17 Books About Cities We Read This Year via Bloomberg CityLab
The 50 Best Albums of 2022 via Pitchfork
2022 FIFA World Cup: TOP TEN MOMENTS of the tournament via FOX Soccer
2022, in 7 minutes via Vox
Pluralistic: An end-of-year retrospective (24 Dec 2022)
State of the Studio 2022 via Venkatesh Rao
Oops! The Worst Political Predictions of 2022 via Politico
Tomorrow is yesterday: 100-year-old predictions about 2023 via the Akron Beacon Journal
Quanta Magazine’s Biggest Breakthroughs
“Momentum for new ideas in Alzheimer’s research joined advances in neuroscience, developmental biology and origin-of-life studies”
“In a year filled with sweet new observations in astronomy and tantalizing breakthroughs in condensed matter physics, the brand-new space telescope takes the cake.”
“this year learned how to transmit perfect secrets, why transformers seem so good at everything, and how to improve on decades-old algorithms (with a little help from AI).”
“Four Fields Medals were awarded for major breakthroughs in geometry, combinatorics, statistical physics and number theory, even as mathematicians continued to wrestle with how computers are changing the discipline.”
Top 14 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2022 Edition via PLOS SciComm
“This year—2022—has been another exciting year for research in human evolution. With many projects around the world proceeding despite the COVID pandemic, there were multiple exciting discoveries and breakthroughs in a variety of fields. From telling us more about our food, our health, our close relatives and ancestors, and even our animal friends, these new discoveries shed more light on what it means to be human.
Meat, fire, and beer: the origins of our modern food staples and how they shaped our species
Animal friends…and animal food: origins of domestication and cooperation
New fossils shed light on old ancestors: discoveries from our earliest and most recent evolutionary history
Friends and family ties in modern apes and Neanderthals
How disease shapes us, and how we have evolved to treat it
Ancient DNA: A new Nobel Laureate”
—
Additional thread on discoveries via John Hawks
Eight Times Science Exceeded Expectations in 2022 via The New Yorker
“It’s no surprise that we keep finding and building cool things. But the things that we find and build can still surprise us. 2022 was another year full of science and technology advances. It’s too soon to identify the most important developments of the year; science takes time to mature. But here are eight moments that were remarkable to me, to experts in their respective fields, and even to those doing the work.
We Nudged an Asteroid
Magic Mushrooms Reduced Depression
Earth Got Hotter—and Hotter
Brain Cells in a Dish Played Pong
A Blockchain Reduced Its Energy Use by 99.95 Per Cent
We Found Two-Million-Year-Old Mastodon DNA
Artificial Intelligence Learned Diplomacy
We Generated Fusion Power (Finally, Sorta)
8 Fascinating Discoveries of the James Webb Telescope via ColdFusion
“1 Year Later”
—
Additional: Year Ender 2022: Few of NASA’s Top Accomplishments this year
The Top 10 Psychedelic Science Studies Of 2022 via Healing Maps
“The criteria is pretty simple. A study must involve psychedelic experimentation, highly innovative psychedelic-centric surveys, or data sets from psychedelic studies and be critically analyzed using the scientific method. While there have been an enormous amount of groundbreaking reviews from top-tier psychedelic scientists across the world (like Manoj Doss and David Yaden), all of these were excluded from the list.
Only those psychedelic science studies that (I believe) have the potential to revolutionize the field of psychedelic scientific inquiry and impact humanity’s understanding of the brain, physiology, consciousness in context with psychedelics were included on the list.”
Changes in music-evoked emotion and ventral striatal functional connectivity after psilocybin therapy for Depression.
Remembering Molly: Immediate and delayed false memory formation after acute MDMA exposure.
Ketamine induces multiple individually distinct whole-brain functional connectivity signatures.
Increased global integration in the brain after psilocybin therapy for depression.
Neural mechanisms of imagery under psilocybin.
Psilocybin induces acute and persisting alterations in immune status and the stress response in healthy volunteers.
Parker Singleton’s Paper
Psilocybin induces spatially constrained alterations in thalamic functional organization and connectivity.
LSD and creativity: Increased novelty and symbolic thinking, decreased utility and convergent thinking.
Psychedelic use predicts objective knowledge about climate change via increases in nature relatedness.
22 Problems Solved in 2022 via Wendover Productions
“The good news of 2022”
The Bright Side of 2022 via Zachary Karabell
“Progress is always provisional, of course, but so is doom-saying. If you’re going to forecast the end of the world, it’s best not to give a date. Will things turn suddenly worse in 2023? Will markets collapse in the face of recession? Will turmoil prevail? Perhaps. But if this past year is any gauge, far more likely is a muddling through, with billions of people striving for a better life and, for the most part, achieving it. Much will continue to go tragically and spectacularly wrong, but that shouldn’t keep us recognizing and celebrating all that goes right.”
Environmental review of 2022: another mile on the ‘highway to climate hell’ via The Guardian
“Overall, however, the climate crisis is bleaker than it has ever been. In October, a slew of reports laid bare how close the planet had neared to irreversible climate breakdown, with one UN study stating there was “no credible pathway in place to 1.5C”, the internationally agreed limit for global heating, and that progress on cutting carbon emissions was “woefully inadequate”.”
Deep impact
‘Turbocharged’ renewables growth
Deal for nature
Chemical cocktails
Attention grabbers
Final farewells
2022 Empowering Libraries Year in Review via Internet Archive
“The Internet Archive launched the Empowering Libraries campaign in 2020 to defend equal access to library services for all. Since then, threats to libraries have only grown, so our fight continues. As 2022 draws to a close, here’s a look back through some of our library’s milestones and accomplishments over the year.”
Project Censored's State of the Free Press 2023 via Prospect.org
“Every year, I note that there are multiple patterns to be found in the list of Project Censored’s stories, and that these different patterns have much to tell us about the forces shaping what remains hidden. That’s still true, with three environmental stories (two involving fossil fuels), three involving money in politics (two dark money stories), and two involving illicit surveillance. But the dominance of this one pattern truly is remarkable. It shows how profoundly the concentration of corporate wealth and power in the hands of so few distorts everything we see — or don’t — in the world around us every day.
Here then, is this year’s list of Project Censored’s top 10 censored stories:"
Fossil Fuel Industry Subsidized at Rate of $11 Million per Minute
Wage Theft: U.S. Businesses Suffer Few Consequences for Stealing Millions from Workers Every Year
EPA Withheld Reports on Dangerous Chemicals
At Least 128 Members of Congress Invested in Fossil Fuel Industry
Dark Money Interference in U.S. Politics Undermines Democracy
Corporate Consolidation Causing Record Inflation in Food Prices
Concerns for Journalistic Independence as Gates Foundation Gives $319 Million to News Outlets
CIA Discussed Plans to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange
New Laws Preventing Dark Money Disclosures Sweep the Nation
Major Media Outlets Lobby Against Regulation of “Surveillance Advertising”
Best of our 2022 content! via the Institute of Art and Ideas
“The IAI’s best content in philosophy, politics, science and the arts throughout the year! Thank you for joining us in 2022, and bring it on 2023!”
Year in Review via IntelligenceSquared Debates
“Here’s to you listeners and watchers of debate
Who at times may have wondered what is the fate
Of a discourse that is broken
Or at least a bit hobbled.
When listening to a nation that yells and a people who squabble.
Fear not, dear listeners, we say with some hope.
We do in fact have a way you can cope: A NEW PODCAST we made just for you
Of our favorite debate moments, and some of yours too.
Real debate and discussion offers intellectual cheer.
And so with that, we wish you safe holidays and a happy new year.
Year in Review: 2022 gives you some of our favorite moments from some of our best debates this year.”
TIME's Top 100 Photos of 2022
“The following 100 images, an unranked selection carefully curated by TIME’s eight-person team of photo editors, aim to show in pictures that this year was indeed different.”
One of the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope showing galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. - NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO
Workers dig out copper and cobalt ore from an open-pit mine operated by artisanal mining cooperative COMAKAT in Shabaka in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 6. - Laurel Chor
Cadets practice an emergency situation during a lesson in a bomb shelter on the first day of school at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 1. - Efrem Lukatsky—AP
The Nahua community celebrating for the Maiz in Xalpatlahuac, Guerrero, Mexico, on March 27. - Yael Martinez—Magnum Photos
The silos damaged in the 2020 Beirut blast, on July 22. Part of the silos collapsed on July 31, following a weeks-long blaze. - Myriam Boulos—Magnum Photos for TIME
Local children and their parents react to a makeshift memorial in downtown Uvalde, nearby Robb Elementary School, on May 26. - David Butow—Redux
The control room at MSNBC's studio in New York City on June 9, during the first public hearing before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The hearing aired during prime time. - Sinna Nasseri—The New York Times/Redux
Israeli police confront mourners as they carry the casket of slain Al Jazeera veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during her funeral in east Jerusalem, on May 13. Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American reporter who covered the Mideast conflict for more than 25 years, was shot dead during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. - Maya Levin—AP
Thousands of students gather together on the University of Virginia's South Lawn on Nov. 14 for a moment of silence to honor the three students killed—Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry—and two wounded in a shooting on Nov. 13. - Justin Ide
The Best Art I Saw in 2022 via Kevin Buist
“For years I always wrote a post in late December about the best art I had seen that year. When I worked for ArtPrize I got to travel to art fairs, biennials, and various cities where I visited museums and galleries. When Covid hit in 2020 ArtPrize was canceled and I left that job. I still wrote a Best Art of 2020 post, but it was an odd one, reflecting the strangeness of pandemic lockdown, and stretching the definition of art to include video games I was playing and books I was reading. In 2021 I did travel and see some art, but I didn’t write a year-end round-up. The following is my attempt to restart the habit.
Whenever I do this there’s a danger that I’m going to accidentally write ten whole essays that will be way too long. So this year I’m trying a new format where I list what the artwork was and why I thought it was great, in an attempt to get to the point. These artworks are listed in the order that I saw them, they’re not ranked. Also, this is not a “best exhibitions of 2022” type list, because I didn’t see nearly enough to write anything definitive.”
Ben Grosser, Order of Magnitude (2019), SXSW in Austin, TX
Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa (1804), Louvre, Paris
Girolamo Della Robbia, Sketched funerary effigy of Catherine de Medici (1565), Louvre, Paris
Réseaux-Mondes, Pompidou, Paris
Gudskul, Gudspace and Gudkitchen, Documenta 15, Kassel, Germany
Dorothea Tanning, Tableau Vivant (1954), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Douglas Gordon, List of Names (Random) (after 1990), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
“KILROY WAS HERE” on the WWII Monument, Washington DC
Wayne Adams, The Body of Christ (2022), The Center Art Gallery at Calvin University, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Peer to Peer, Buffalo AKG and Feral File, online exhibition
The 10 Best Movies of 2022 via Like Stories of Old
10 - The Menu; 9 - TÁR; 8 -Athena ; 7 - RRR; 6 -Top Gun: Maverick; 5 - Everything Everywhere All At Once; 4 - The Batman; 3 - The Banshees of Inisherin; 2 - Decision to Leave; 1 - The Fallout
The Top 10 Movies of 2022 via Thomas Flight
10 - The Northman; 9 - Decision to Leave; 8 - The Banshees of Inisherin; 7b - Top Gun: Maverick; 7 - Avatar: The Way of Water; 6 - Nope; 5 - The Fabelmans; 4 - Triangle of Sadness; 3 - Aftersun; 2 - TÁR; 1 - Everything Everywhere All At Once
The best books of 2022 via The Guardian
“From Hanya Yanagihara’s epic novel to a brilliant memoir by Bono … Guardian critics pick the year’s best fiction, politics, science, children’s books and more.”
17 Books About Cities We Read This Year via Bloomberg CityLab
“We were fascinated by overlooked infrastructure, like the underground sewer systems that do our cities’ dirty work, and the resilient institution that is the American mall. We were searching through history for answers to some of today’s most pressing urban questions, like what drives traffic fatalities, and why some cities’ housing crises are more painful than others. We were looking for hope, in the form of communities fighting for change and pandemic-altered cities rebuilding. And we were finding fun, in the spontaneity of Tokyo’s alleyways, the resilience of urban wildlife, and the allure of an architect’s romance.”
The 50 Best Albums of 2022 via Pitchfork
“2022 was the year of the comeback. As the music industry stumbled out of its pandemic fog, many artists finally delivered long delayed, highly anticipated, and sonically experimental albums that met some of the expectations built up for them. Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Björk, Alvvays, Rosalía, and Mitski returned with records that were worth the wait. And rising artists like Sudan Archives, Special Interest, Yaya Bey, and Lucrecia Dalt came through with some of the most exciting, progressive releases of their time. These are the 50 best albums of the year.”
2022 FIFA World Cup: TOP TEN MOMENTS of the tournament via FOX Soccer
“Check out this video showing the top ten moments of the 2022 FIFA World Cup! Lionel Messi hoisting the World Cup for Argentina makes number one, followed by Richarlison's scissor-kick goal for Brazil and Croatia's victory in a penalty kick shootout”
2022, in 7 minutes via Vox
“Running up that hill with 8 billion people.”
Pluralistic: An end-of-year retrospective (24 Dec 2022)
“Every day, I revisit all the posts I've ever made, over more than 20 years of blogging; I review posts from one year, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years and 20 years ago, revisiting my priors and regrounding myself in the arc of stories I've followed for decades. I call it "The Memex Method":
As I'm about to leave on vacation for two weeks, I won't be blogging until after Jan 7. Normally, I'd just skip over those days for my "This Day in History" posts, but I made the mistake of looking ahead at those holiday-season posts from years gone by and I realized I wanted to handle them, copy-pasting their URLs and publishing them, just to reinfuse them into the supersaturated solution of half-remembered facts that my mind periodically crystallizes into stories, novels, speeches, essays, and nonfiction books.
So I've produced a mega-retrospective, consisting of all the links for #20yrsago, #15yrsago, #10yrsago, #5yrsago, and #1yrago, for every day between now and January 7. See you in 2023!”
State of the Studio 2022 via Venkatesh Rao
“I now have a much clearer idea of what this Substack newsletter is, why I am writing it, and how. I might say more about all that in a future issue, but this issue is the dreaded round-up issue. Round-ups are generally the boring 1-person self-Oscars of writing online, primarily intended for the writers themselves, but I think this one will actually be useful to you, the reader. Especially newer readers who might not have the context of my older stuff.”
Oops! The Worst Political Predictions of 2022 via Politico
“What elevates something above a merely bad prediction is, I think, hubris — a certain performative insincerity whereby the person who makes a prediction surely knows better than to be totally sure of what they’re saying, but is driven to say it anyway. When your words have the whiff of “I have no doubt, and will not entertain it, nor should you,” there’s a good chance you should at least ask why you’re so certain.
There is something about politics that attracts hubris, or at least brings out the hubristic side in people. This is likely bad for our politics, our discourse, maybe even our nation. But it’s good for the listicle-industrial complex.”
Tomorrow is yesterday: 100-year-old predictions about 2023 via the Akron Beacon Journal
“Congratulations. We have finally reached the future.
Nearly 100 years ago, a group of creative minds dared to imagine what life would be like in 2023. Some of their predictions fell hilariously short while others proved to be weirdly accurate.
Join us now as we gaze into that crystal ball from 1923.”
Don’t work so hard; Bring on the smartphone; Population explosion; Happy honeymoon; Fuel for thought; Wars of the future; We can do it!; Building for the future; Age is just a number; That’s entertainment; Politics as usual; A little off the top; We’ll drink to that; Zingers from 1923
“What is the use of predicting what the world will be 100 years hence?
It will be the same old world, same old sunshine, same old human nature, and about the same proportion of cranks, agitators, radicals and conservatives.” — The Racine Journal Times in Wisconsin
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