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Scotsman
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Theatre reviews: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare and Marlowe benefit from a spot of theatrical magic, writes Joyce McMillan Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A Midsummer Night's Dream Glasgow Botanic Gardens **** James Boal as Oberon in in A Midsummer Night's Dream Doctor Faustus Glasgow Botanic Gardens *** Can it be that in the age of internet, with all its invisible influences and influencers putting a girdle around the earth in far less than 40 minutes, it somehow becomes easier to believe in Shakespeare's fabulous fairy creatures – or at least in their power to change human hearts and minds in an instant? Adam Donaldson as Faustus and Sam Stopford as Mephistopheles in Dr Faustus as part of Bard in the Botanics (Picture: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) Perhaps; at any rate, what's clear is that the 2025 Bard In The Botanics season launches with a truly delightful and completely persuasive version of A Midsummer Night's Dream that puts Shakespeare's powerful fairy creatures centre stage. In Bard director Gordon Barr's production, an 11-strong company of young actors take to the stage in a version which – unusually for this company – makes no change to the original gender balance of Shakespeare's comedy about four bewildered lovers lost in the forest, and vulnerable to fairy magic. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad There is, though, a crucial switch between fairy king and queen – James Boal's gorgeous green-clad Oberon, and Claire Macallister's proud Titania – as to who drives the plot, and wins the war between them. And with veteran Bard favourite Allan Steele joining the cast as Bottom, star of the troop of tradesman actors rehearsing a play for the duke's wedding, the stage is set – not least thanks to Carys Hobbs's lush green design – for a glorious romp through Shakespeare's tale. Lola Aluko and Star Penders make a fine comic pairing as the female lovers Hermia and Helena, while Bailey Newsome turns in an outstanding comic performance as Peter Quince, the exasperated director of the tradesman's plays, and Steele and Boal extract maximum hilarity from the potion-induced romance between Oberon and Bottom, magically transformed into an ass. None of this would work half so well, though, without the remarkable presence of Benjamin Keachie's Glasgow Puck, a gleefully irreverent spirit who combines power and good looks with a terrific eloquence in both Shakespearean verse and Glasgow patter. As Titania's servant, Puck is the spirit who makes and mars the whole drama, with his mischievous mistakes, and his final skill in rectifying them all; and he leads this joyful Dream to a witty and rousing conclusion, roundly celebrated by the subway-strike crowd at the bus stop afterwards. 'It was Shakespeare,' said one to a bystander. 'But it was just so funny. We loved it!' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In the elegant space of the Kibble Palace, meanwhile, Barr's associate director Jennifer Dick offers a thoughtful but inconclusive 80-minute version of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, a play written just a couple of years before A Midsummer Night's Dream, in the 1590's; but arguably more modern, in its fraught relationship with the supernatural powers it invokes. In Dick's version, Doctor Faustus is a medic dressed in modern-day scrubs; but as in the original play, he yearns for power and excitement beyond what his worthwhile profession can offer. The main theatrical feature of Dick's version is the intense conflict she imagines between a melancholy and charismatic Sam Stopford as the demon Mephistopheles, who encourages Faust to sell his soul to the devil in return for glamorous magical powers, and a fragile, yet fiercely memorable Rebecca Robin as Faust's good angel, constantly urging repentance and a return to God. In best horror-movie style, these two forces challenge and torture one another, sometimes possessed by strange voices and movements; while between them, Adam Donaldson struggles slightly to pull the focus back to the magnificent, agonised poetry of Faust's descent into hell. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Marlowe's play, though, involves a powerful critique of the male fascination for flashy technology, or 'magic', that offers transient and superficial forms of power; and although the imagined struggle for Faust's soul portrayed here sometimes sits at a slight tangent to that theme, the show still offers a haunting sense of a human soul destroyed by wrong choices, in ways that carry huge resonances across our damaged 21st century world.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
UBS Keeps Buy Rating on AMD After AI Event
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is one of the 10 Best American Semiconductor Stocks to Buy Now. On June 13, UBS kept its 'Buy' rating with a price target of $150 for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) after the company's AI event. The firm noted that the event met expectations. UBS analysts also highlighted Amazon as a new customer and a surprise appearance at the event by OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman. The event focused on AMD's MI355X chip launch and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) also confirmed that a version of the MI400 chip will be released by mid-2026. The company highlighted the size and rapid growth of the inference market, which UBS believes is in line with AMD's structural advantages in HBM memory bandwidth. These advantages will benefit the company's MI400 rack-scale product, called Helios, which will have 1.5 times more HBM4 capacity and bandwidth than NVIDIA's Vera Rubin 'Oberon' system. According to UBS, both of these products are expected to launch around the same time. A close up of a complex looking PCB board with several intergrated semiconductor parts. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) chose to use Ethernet to scale up inside the rack for Helios. UBS sees this as a positive for Broadcom. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) is a global semiconductor company that is known for its graphics processing units (GPUs), microprocessors, and high-performance computing solutions. The company serves a range of high-growth industries like gaming, data centers, and AI. While we acknowledge the potential of AMD as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 11 Stocks That Will Bounce Back According To Analysts and 11 Best Stocks Under $15 to Buy According to Hedge Funds. Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'Uranus is weird.' Big moons of tilted ice giant hide a magnetic mystery, Hubble telescope reveals
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. New data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggests that Uranus' largest moons are gathering dust — literally. Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun and home to 28 known moons, is well known for its bizarre tilt. The planet spins almost completely on its side, an oddball orientation that twists its magnetic field into a warped and constantly shifting force, which scientists have long thought would leave visible scars on its moons by bombarding them with charged particles. However, new Hubble Space Telescope observations of Uranus' four largest moons — Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon — show no clear signs of the expected radiation damage, Christian Soto of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Maryland, who led the analysis, told reporters on Tuesday (June 10) at the 246th American Astronomical Society (AAS) press conference in Alaska. Based on data from NASA's Voyager 2 flyby in 1986 and decades of modeling, scientists expected the trailing hemispheres of Uranus' moons — the sides opposite their direction of travel — to be visibly darkened by radiation. The leading sides, by contrast, were expected to remain relatively brighter. Instead, the researchers found that the two outer moons, Titania and Oberon, are darker on their leading sides, the opposite of what they had predicted. The visible darkening, they say, doesn't come from Uranus' magnetic field at all, but from dust. Hubble's data points to a slow inward drift of dust from Uranus' distant irregular moons, which orbit between 2.5 to 13 million miles (4 to 20 million kilometers) from the planet. These outer moons are constantly bombarded by micrometeorites, which kick up particles that gradually spiral inward over millions of years, Soto said. As Titania and Oberon travel through this diffuse dust cloud, they accumulate the particles mostly on their leading sides. "Think of driving very fast on a highway, and bugs are hitting your windshield — that's what we're seeing here," Soto said during the press briefing. Interestingly, the inner moons Ariel and Umbriel show no significant difference in brightness between their leading and trailing sides — possibly because the drifting dust doesn't reach them, thanks to shielding by Titania and Oberon. "Dust collection — I didn't even expect to get into that hypothesis," Richard Cartwright, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, said in a statement. "But you know, data always surprise you." As for the role of Uranus' powerful magnetic field, researchers now suspect that its effects might be subtler or more complex than previously thought. It may still be interacting with the moons, but not in a way that creates strong contrasts on their surfaces. RELATED STORIES: — Uranus: Everything you need to know about the coldest planet in the solar system — Are there hidden oceans inside the moons of Uranus? Their wobbles could tell us — A day on Uranus is actually longer than we thought, Hubble Telescope reveals "Uranus is weird, so it's always been uncertain how much the magnetic field actually interacts with its satellites," Cartwright said in the statement. The findings highlight how little we still know about Uranus. Apart from Voyager 2's brief flyby nearly 40 years ago, coincidentally during a rare solar event, no dedicated mission has ever visited the planet. To learn more, Soto's team has scheduled follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope within the next year. Using infrared imaging, Webb will take a closer look at the same moons, potentially confirming whether dust, radiation or a combination of both is shaping their surfaces. "Why do we do this?" Soto said at the briefing. "Well, Uranus is weird — so why not?"
Forbes
11-06-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Hubble Space Telescope Reveals Moons And Rings Of ‘Weird' Uranus
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has snapped new images of the solar system's seventh planet, Uranus, revealing not only its rings but new secrets about its intriguing moons and how its magnetic field works. The five largest moons of Uranus – sometimes called the 'classical moons' — appear in a jagged, ... More roughly diagonal line from top right to bottom left. These are labeled Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Miranda and Ariel. Also visible is Ariel's shadow, which is superimposed on Uranus. Faint, ghostly, Saturn-like rings encircle the blue ice giant. Hubble's new ultraviolet image of Uranus, taken with its Advanced Camera for Surveys, shows the gas giant planet in space with its five largest moons — often referred to as its 'classical moons' — in a jagged line. The moons — Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Miranda and Ariel — were captured in the image, which was published on June 10. Ariel can be seen transiting the disk of Uranus, with its shadow apparent on the planet's blue methane-rich atmosphere. All may be 'ocean worlds,' which could host life. The image also shows faint, ghostly rings around Uranus. According to NASA, Uranus has 13 faint rings in total, divided into two distinct sets. In 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope imaged the rings of Uranus and six of its 27 moons and is expected to do so again. The five largest moons of Uranus – sometimes called the 'classical moons' — appear in a jagged, ... More roughly diagonal line from top right to bottom left. These are labeled Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Miranda and Ariel. Also visible is Ariel's shadow, which is superimposed on Uranus. Faint, ghostly, Saturn-like rings encircle the blue ice giant. This new study, presented during a press conference at AAS 246 in Anchorage, Alaska, on Tuesday, June 10, examines the magnetic environment of Uranus and its largest moons. It reveals surprising findings. Scientists had expected that radiation from the magnetic field of Uranus would darken the trailing hemispheres of its moons, but an analysis of the surfaces of Uranus' four major moons — Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon — found the opposite. That suggests that Uranus' magnetosphere might not interact much with its large moons, and it may be either dormant or much more complicated than previously thought. 'Uranus is weird, so it's always been uncertain how much the magnetic field actually interacts with its satellites,' said Richard Cartwright, principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. 'For starters, it is tilted by 98 degrees relative to the ecliptic." That means it rolls on its side as it completes its 84-Earth-year orbit of the sun. The two ice giant planets in the solar system — Uranus and Neptune — remain unexplored, having had only brief flybys by Voyager 2 in 1986 and 1989, respectively. Planetary scientists' lack of detailed knowledge about ice giants (large planets composed mainly of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) has become more significant in recent years, particularly with research into exoplanets — planets that orbit a star other than the sun. According to research, the most typical size of exoplanets in the Milky Way is between that of Earth and Neptune, which are likely to be ice giants. If astronomers are to understand other star systems, they need a baseline — and that means sending a mission to Uranus or Neptune. Hopes are fading for a much-needed NASA flagship mission to Uranus. Despite being recommended as NASA's highest priority large mission in 2022 by the National Academy of Sciences, the likelihood of a $4.2 billion orbiter — with an atmospheric probe to dive beneath its clouds — is now small in the light of a 'destructive proposal' by the Trump Administration to cut almost $6 billion (24%) from the space agency's budget. Scientists want NASA to send the mission in 2032, with a planned arrival at Uranus in 2045. The next best launch window is in the 2090s.
ABC News
09-06-2025
- Climate
- ABC News
Snow turns the town of Orange white on the NSW Central Tablelands
The first snow of the season is falling on the New South Wales Central Tablelands. Light falls have been reported in Orange, around Oberon and at Yetholme between Bathurst and Lithgow. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) had forecast snow in the Central Tablelands down to 800 metres, and down to 900m on the Southern Tablelands and Central West slopes and plains. "There are a couple of areas where there's just a little bit of white in the corners of social media or on web cams but it isn't looking like the nice white blanket that we've had on the ski fields [in the Snowy Mountains]," BOM meteorologist Helen Reid said. Overnight conditions plunged to minus 1 degree Celsius in a number of districts, with the apparent or "feels like" temperature hovering around minus 5C. "I think most places have fallen below 2C which is when we start thinking about the idea of frostiness, so that's right through the Central Tablelands and down into the Southern Tablelands," Ms Reid said. The BOM said the cold air mass creating the conditions was expected to linger for the next few days, with small hail and icy showers also forecast. "I would suggest that today is your better day to see some snow come through," Ms Reid said. "After that time, we aren't expecting snow to be a feature. "However there is another slim chance on Wednesday that we might see something in the Central Tablelands."
