Woman Insects

The Woman Behind Borges

Alejandro Chacoff | The Dial | 1st August 2023

Jorge Luis Borges had just two months to live when he married his secretary and collaborator Maria Kodama in 1986. He died that year aged 86; she died this year, also aged 86, after almost four decades as sole heir and executor of Borges's estate. Obsessive and litigious, Kodama believed that she alone understood Borges's work, and she assumed "medium-like airs" when she spoke of him (3,400 words)

Joys And Pains Of Insects

Lars Chittka | Scientific American | 1st July 2023

Bees can count, grasp concepts of sameness and difference, and learn complex tasks by observing others; they appear to experience pleasure and pain. Wasps can recognise other wasps' faces. Ants will help other ants in trouble. Flies can be fooled by virtual reality. It may be time to recalibrate our ideas of insecthood: "It seems that some species of insects, maybe all of them, are sentient" (3,400 words)