Painter David Hockney’s new book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters suggests it was not just better brush technique that created the photorealistic precision of Renaissance European painting. American Scientist

The Social Psychology of Modern Slavery: “Contrary to conventional wisdom, slavery has not disappeared from the world. Social scientists are trying to explain its persistence.” Scientific American

Veterinary:

‘I was with him once when he was called in to see a deeply demented patient, God knows for what reason. He repeatedly tried to start his examination, but the patient warded him off with piercing cries.

“This is getting rather too veterinarian,” muttered D., putting his reflex hammer back into his white coat and marching with some pomp back to his own ward.’ Threepenny Review

Surrealist Views From a Real Live One: ‘During the two hours it takes to see (the monumental Surrealist show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Desire Unbound”), Ms. Tanning will prove to be both Surrealism’s poet and its scourge, beginning with Salvador Dali’s “Venus With Drawers,” a modified plaster bust of the love goddess as a cabinet, with grungy white pompon pulls attached to the drawers incorporated into its torso.’ NY Times

Four Secular Questions: “Here are four secular questions that could be asked and answered after the Passover ceremony concludes.” –William Safire NY Times

Extending Life, Defibrillators Can Prolong Misery: “The devices can fundamentally change the end stages of heart disease, giving years of life to people who would otherwise die. Some experts are asking whether the devices are going to create a new generation of patients who die slow and painful deaths.” NY Times

Limit copying and we may end up copying the USSR –John Naughton Guardian Unlimited

Leaders Say Poverty Breeds Terrorism: The developing countries have always had difficulty persuading the industrial powers that it is in their best interest to offer extensive development assistance and other foreign aid. 9-11 may turn out to be a goldmine for them, literally, as they band together with the assertion that poverty breeds terrorism and it behooves the First World to protect themselves by eliminating it. Lycos News It may be true, but does it also smack of crass opportunism if not frank blackmail?