11 Jul 2019
Dive into the mind-bending works of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose work pioneered the literary style magical realism.
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What would it be like to have a limitless memory? Can the meaning of life be found in an infinite library? Is time a labyrinth or a single moment? Jorge Luis Borges explored these questions of infinity in his many works. His body of essays, poems and stories pioneered the literary style known as magical realism— and each was just a few pages long. Ilan Stavans dives into the world of Borges.
Lesson by Ilan Stavans, directed by Aim Creative Studios.
18 Sept 2026 #carbon #cartogram #emissions
In 1750 every tonne of fossil carbon dioxide anyone recorded came from one island. Today China alone emits more than the next four countries combined.
Every country on this map is resized so that its area matches the carbon dioxide it emits each year, and the whole thing runs from 1750 to 2024. It starts at 9.3 million tonnes and ends at 37.4 billion. In between: Britain is still 96% of the recorded total in 1800 and below half by 1855; the United States passes Britain in 1888 and holds the top of the map for 116 years; the American share hits 55% in 1945, the highest it ever gets; China sits third on 8% in 1980 and passes the United States in 2006. The map gets redrawn three times, and each time it is the same mechanism — somewhere industrialising at speed on fuel it had underneath it.
Episode two of MAPPED. Every figure on screen is sourced.
⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 275 Years of Carbon, Mapped
0:08 One Island, Three Quarters of the Map
0:34 China Does Not Appear Until 1907
1:15 Britain Falls Below Two Thirds
1:35 America Rises on a Continent of Coal
2:02 1888: The United States Passes Britain
2:22 Three Countries, 70% of the Map
2:57 The Wall Street Crash Takes a Quarter
3:21 1950: America is 44% of the World
4:09 China Enters the Map at 8%
4:32 Europe Peaks in 1990, Then Falls
5:06 2006: China Passes the United States
6:14 37 Billion Tonnes, and Asia is 63%
6:25 China Alone Beats the Next Four Combined
6:46 Who Actually Put It There
7:09 Per Person, the Ranking Changes Again
📊 KEY DATA
• 9.3 million tonnes — the whole recorded world in 1750, all of it British, about two hours of today’s emissions
• 96% — Britain’s share of the recorded total in 1800, fifty years into the industrial revolution
• 1907, 1868, 1858 — the years China, Japan and India first appear in this record; before that they are not zero, they are uncounted
• 62% → below 50% — Britain between 1850 and 1855, while its own emissions were still rising
• 1888 — the United States passes Britain, and from 1890 holds the top of the map for 116 years
• 34% / 21% / 17% — the US, Britain and Germany in 1900, about 70% of the map between them
• 55% — the American share in 1945, the highest the United States ever reaches
• 10 billion tonnes in 1964, 20 billion in 1986 — the second ten billion took 22 years, the first took two centuries
• 8% → 33% — China between 1980 and today, an eightfold rise, most of it inside twenty years
• 12.29 Gt — China in 2024, more than the United States, India, Russia and Japan combined
• 24% / 16% — the United States and China as shares of ALL fossil CO2 ever emitted, 1750 to 2024
• 59% vs 29% — Europe and North America’s share of the cumulative total, against the annual one
• 14 / 9 / 2 tonnes — emissions per person in the United States, China and India
🔍 SOURCES
• Global Carbon Budget via Our World in Data, territorial fossil CO2, 1750–2024 — https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
• Global Carbon Project, Global Carbon Budget 2024 — https://globalcarbonbudget.org/
• Also cited: UN World Population Prospects 2024, for the per-person and share-of-population figures
Pre-1900 figures are reconstructions from records of coal mined and traded, not measurements of the air, and coverage before 1830 is thin — countries drawn in grey are ones nobody was counting yet, not ones emitting nothing. Borders are modern throughout.
18 Sept 2026 #linguistics #history #airlearnlanguageshow
If discovering how every country and island on the map got its name—carrying ancient tribes, insults, painted people, and forgotten goddesses—makes you want to turn real-world history into a lens for mastering true fluency, Airlearn helps you master a new language through culture, stories, and real-world context, not just rote memorization.
“Almost none of these names mean what you think they mean. Wales isn’t what the Welsh call themselves. Scotland’s name originally belonged to Ireland. ‘Great’ Britain isn’t bragging about anything. And a tiny island in this archipelago might actually be named after salted fish.”
In this episode of the Airlearn Language Show, we take a full etymological tour across the British Isles, unraveling the political and linguistic origins behind England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and the smaller island chains like Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, Anglesey, Scilly, and Wight.
You will discover:
Why England means “land of the Angles” and how the kingdom missed being called “Saxonland”
The dark Old English origins of “Wales” (wealh meaning foreigner/slave) versus the native endonym Cymru (“compatriots”)
How “Scotland” originally referred to Irish Gaelic speakers and how the Picts merged into Alba
The poetic Celtic origins of Ireland (Ériu, a goddess of the land) and Britain (Pretani, “tattooed people”)
The geographic truth behind “Great Britain” vs. “Little Britain” (Brittany) and the modern constitutional origins of the “United Kingdom”
Etymological rabbit holes: Shetland’s misread “yogh” letter, the Isle of Man’s sea god Manannán, and the Isles of Scilly’s “salted fish” theory
This is not just a dry recitation of map labels. It is a look at how place-names are living fossils—records of who built the land, who invaded it, and who wrote down the history.
If you enjoyed this deep dive, like the video, leave a comment sharing which origin story surprised you the most, and subscribe to the Airlearn Language Show so you never miss an episode.
Photo: Yeshi Zangpo, courtesy of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art
hutanese artist Pem Lham has won the 2026 Rubin Museum Himalayan Art Prize, an international award recognizing contemporary artists whose work connects Himalayan art with contemporary life. Lham received the $30,000 unrestricted prize on September 11 at VAST Bhutan in Thimphu, where she lives and works. The award recognizes her multidisciplinary practice, which draws from Bhutanese folklore to explore gender, identity, memory, and the experience of living between inherited traditions and the present.
Lham works primarily across painting and mixed media. By combining tenderness with humor, satire, and introspection, Lham often takes familiar cultural symbols and shifts their meaning, creating space for new ways of understanding Bhutanese identity.
Pem Lham (b. 1997, Lhuentse, Bhutan; lives and works in Thimphu, Bhutan); She, untitled 9; Bhutan, 2026; Acrylic on canvas – 60.96×91.44cm. (Photo: courtesy of Yeshi Zangpo)
Lham’s work brings Bhutanese folklore into contemporary life. Her approach does not treat tradition as something fixed in the past. Instead, Lham uses inherited stories as material for questioning the present. Her work moves between the familiar and the surreal, often using wit to approach subjects that can be difficult to discuss directly.
A central figure in her practice is Molay, a spirit girl from Bhutanese mask dance traditions. Lham reimagines Molay as a contemporary woman. Through this recurring figure, she examines womanhood and the stories that shape cultural identity.
Lham’s first solo exhibition, Molay Moley, took place in Thimphu in 2025 and was presented by VAST Bhutan, the nonprofit artist collective that she has been involved with for more than 16 years. She first became connected with VAST as a young artist and later became involved in supporting other Bhutanese youth as they developed their own creative practices.
My Modern Met’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Eugene Kim recently visited VAST Gallery with MyBhutan to explore Bhutan’s contemporary art and cultural landscape. […]
Her Majesty Ashi Jetsun Pema Wangchuck, Queen of Bhutan, with Pem Lham, 2026 Rubin Museum Himalayan Art Prize recipient. (Photo: RHOM Bhutan)
Pem Lham (b. 1997, Lhuentse, Bhutan; lives and works in Thimphu, Bhutan); Molay Moley, untitled 10; Bhutan, 2025; Acrylic on canvas – 51×120cm. (Photo: courtesy of karma T Dorji)
msamba 