It’s 1940, not long after the end of the Spanish Civil War, and the townsfolk, eager for entertainment, are soon transfixed by this sad, haunting tale of a man-made monster—none more so than Ana (Ana Torrent), a six-year-old girl with a solemn gaze and a steadfast belief that she is witnessing something terrifyingly real. And who, having experienced Whale’s classic themselves, could argue with her? Ana’s older sister, Isabel (Isabel Tellería), does try to allay her fears: “Everything in the movies is fake.” And yet, Isabel insists, with a twinkle of mischief, there is an actual monster in the village, a mysterious spirit with whom they can communicate at will. “Close your eyes,” she whispers, “and call him.”
This story is from the August 26, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the August 26, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Drug of Choice - The natural world contains many billions of potential medications. The question is how to find the ones that work.
AI. is transforming the way medicines are made. Bacteria produce numerous molecules that could become medicines, but most of them aren’t easily identified or synthesized with the technology that exists today. A small percentage of them, however, can be constructed by following instructions in the bacteria’s DNA. Burian helped me search the sequence for genes that looked familiar enough to be understandable but unfamiliar enough to produce novel compounds. We settled on a string of DNA that coded for seven linked amino acids, the same number found in vancomycin. Then Burian introduced me to Robert Boer, a synthetic chemist who would help me conjure our drug candidate.
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