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The School Shooting That Austin Forgot

The School Shooting That Austin Forgot

Crime History Long Reads

John Ray barely remembered the details of that day—May 18, 1978—when a friend at his Austin junior high school walked into class and, in front of Ray and twenty other eighth graders, shot and killed their teacher, Wilbur “Rod” Grayson. Ray and his classmates still wonder: What really happened?

MIT’s Color-Changing Ink Lets You Jazz Up Your Art, Clothes, Car Every Day

MIT’s Color-Changing Ink Lets You Jazz Up Your Art, Clothes, Car Every Day

Design Innovation

If you’ve ever purchased two articles of the same clothing because you couldn’t decide on a color, here’s a game-changer: color-changing ink. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a “reprogrammable ink” that lets you change the color of objects whenever you wish by exposing them to light of various wavelengths.

The Inevitable Decade Of Marvel

The Inevitable Decade Of Marvel

Business Long Reads Media

On July 21, 2019, ‘Avengers: Endgame’ became the highest-grossing film ever, on its way to adding nearly $2.8 billion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s $22.5 billion global box office total. The 2010s were defined by this superhero takeover—though the plans for it were laid even before the decade began.

When The Sahara Was Green

When The Sahara Was Green

History Nature Videos World

The climate of the Sahara was completely different thousands of years ago. And we’re not talking about just a few years of extra rain. We’re talking about a climate that was so wet for so long that animals and humans alike made themselves at home in the middle of the Sahara.

Solar-Powered Prefab Home Comes Move-In Ready

Solar-Powered Prefab Home Comes Move-In Ready

Innovation

Haus.me is a turducken of housing buzzwords: The 3D-printed prefab house integrates smart home technology and can also go off-grid. The company has been making and testing homes that generate their own energy since 2016. Now, the company is ready to start shipping the homes to customers.

Selfishness Is Learned

Selfishness Is Learned

Psychology

Harvard professors, Martin Nowak and Joshua Greene, tackled a question: Which is our default mode, selfishness or selflessness? Do we all have craven instincts we must restrain by force of will? Or are we basically good, even if we slip up sometimes?

How Your Personality Changes As You Age

How Your Personality Changes As You Age

Life Psychology

Our personalities were long thought to be fixed by the time we reach our 30s, but the latest research suggests they change throughout our lives – and bring some surprising benefits.

Matt Rota

Inspiration
Matt Rota
Drought And Floods — The Climate Exodus

Drought And Floods — The Climate Exodus

Nature Videos

More people around the world are fleeing from climate change than from war. If human-induced climate change continues at the current rate, the World Bank warns that by 2050 there could be as many as 180 million climate refugees.

The Shipwrecked Sailors And The Wandering Cod

The Shipwrecked Sailors And The Wandering Cod

Food World

In the remote archipelago of Lofoten, Arctic cod have been dried on oceanfront racks since the age of the Vikings. This is the unlikely story of how the humble fish became king of Norway.

The New York City Subway Map As You’ve Never Seen It Before

The New York City Subway Map As You’ve Never Seen It Before

Cities Design

In 1979, responding to complaints from riders that the subway map was difficult to use, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired the Manhattan design firm Michael Hertz and Associates to create a new map. The M.T.A. subway map is a record of how graphic design, politics and geography have shaped the city over the last 40 years.

How Ring Went From ‘Shark Tank’ Reject To America’s Scariest Surveillance Company

How Ring Went From ‘Shark Tank’ Reject To America’s Scariest Surveillance Company

Business Crime Long Reads

Amazon’s Ring started from humble roots as a smart doorbell company called “DoorBot.” Now it’s surveilling the suburbs and partnering with police. Although there’s no credible evidence that Ring actually deters or reduces crime, claiming that its products achieve these things is essential to its marketing model.

Joseph Ford

Inspiration
Joseph Ford
Are There Bacteria In Your Brain?

Are There Bacteria In Your Brain?

Science

The brain is protected from the bacterial menagerie of the body by the blood-brain barrier, and is considered a sterile organ. Which made it all the more surprising when Rosalinda Roberts, along with Charlene Farmer and Courtney Walker, realized that the unknown objects in their slides were bacteria.

The Invasion Of Venezuela, Brought To You By Silvercorp USA

The Invasion Of Venezuela, Brought To You By Silvercorp USA

Politics

It is the afternoon of Sunday, May 3, 2020, and Jordan Goudreau is confirming that a botched attempt to infiltrate Venezuela with a team of expatriate soldiers (and later, two U.S. citizens) on a hopeless mission to topple the government of President Nicolas Maduro is his doing.

How To Borrow Natural Light

How To Borrow Natural Light

Architecture Explainers Videos

With an increasing focus on sustainable design practices, the smart use of natural daylight in our homes is no longer a luxury — it has become a necessity. At the heart of any good daylighting strategy is a concept of “borrowed” light: the capture of light falling on the exterior of a home and transporting it to the spaces where it’s needed.

'The Countryside Is Where The Radical Changes Are': Rem Koolhaas Goes Rural

'The Countryside Is Where The Radical Changes Are': Rem Koolhaas Goes Rural

Architecture Business Innovation

“There has been no architecture of a similar vigour in the last 100 years. It is based strictly on codes, algorithms, technologies, engineering and performance, not intention. Its boredom is hypnotic, its banality breathtaking.” For Koolhaas, the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center embodies a new kind of sublime.

Eating The Arab Roots Of Sicilian Cuisine

Eating The Arab Roots Of Sicilian Cuisine

Food

Seen from the sky, the island appears as a triangularish football being punted toward the Maghreb by Italy’s boot. It’s a pixelated reflection of Sicilian identity itself, which hovers midway between North African and European. For Sicilians, mal d’Africa is a kind of phantom continent syndrome, a sense of nostalgia for a lost homeland.

How Airlines Make Meals For Thousands Of People

How Airlines Make Meals For Thousands Of People

Explainers Food Videos

For many people economy class used to mean soggy pasta, rubbery eggs and dried-out chicken. For a time U.S airlines even stopped serving free meals altogether in economy class. But in 2019 U.S. airlines posted their tenth straight year of profitability and premium and economy cabins are seeing more food options than ever before.

How McKinsey Destroyed The Middle Class

How McKinsey Destroyed The Middle Class

Business Economics

Consultants seek to legitimate both the job cuts and the explosion of elite pay. Rather than simply improving management, to make American corporations lean and fit, they fostered hierarchy, making management, in David Gordon’s memorable phrase, “fat and mean.”

Bashir Sultani

Inspiration
Bashir Sultani
The Brazilian Town Where The American Confederacy Lives On

The Brazilian Town Where The American Confederacy Lives On

Long Reads World

Confederates who had rejected Reconstruction fled the United States in the wake of the Civil War—a voluntary exile that American history has more or less erased. The Confederados in Americana, Brazil, are one of the last remaining enclaves of the children of the unreconstructed South.

Lives Adrift In A Warming World

Lives Adrift In A Warming World

Long Reads Nature Photos World

If the Earth’s average temperature increases 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, humankind will see catastrophic changes. For millions of people, this extreme warming is already reality, in places like Qatar, Colorado and Angola. And Aaliyah, at the age of 9, has become a climate refugee in Newtok, Alaska.

The Doomsday Glacier

The Doomsday Glacier

Long Reads Nature

Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is so remote that only 28 human beings have ever set foot on it. In the farthest reaches of Antarctica, a nightmare scenario of crumbling ice – and rapidly rising seas – could spell disaster for a warming planet.

Medieval Spanish Ghost Town Becomes Self-Sufficient Ecovillage

Medieval Spanish Ghost Town Becomes Self-Sufficient Ecovillage

Nature Videos World

It’s a utopian fantasy, discover a ghost town and rebuild it in line with your ideals, but in Spain where there are nearly 3000 abandoned villages, some big dreamers have spent the past 3 decades doing just that. One of the first towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet in the mountains of northern Navarra.

The Madness Of Airline Élite Status

The Madness Of Airline Élite Status

Business Economics World

When you fly a lot for work, as I do, you check your frequent-flier mile balance often, to provide data for competitive commiseration. Frequent fliers sometimes go to great lengths to keep their airline élite status, and those efforts are often completely out of proportion to the perks.

How Being A Workaholic Differs From Working Long Hours

How Being A Workaholic Differs From Working Long Hours

Business Health Psychology

An HBR survey found that work hours were not related to any health issues, while workaholism was. Specifically, employees who worked long hours, but who did not obsess about work, did not have increased levels of RMS and reported fewer health complaints than employees who demonstrated workaholism.

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