As Warming Waters Make Shellfish Toxic, A Way Of Life Becomes Deadly For Alaskans
Coastal states have developed statewide systems to keep their recreational and subsistence harvesters safe from paralytic shellfish poisoning. Alaska has no such system. State environmental health officials say the sheer length of its coast makes monitoring shellfish for the toxin impossible.

What The Psychedelic Drug Ayahuasca Showed Me About My Life
For four consecutive nights, a group of 78 of us here at a retreat center in Costa Rica have been drinking a foul-tasting, molasses-like tea containing ayahuasca, a plant concoction that contains the natural hallucinogen known as DMT.

How A Farmer Turned 90 Acres Of Wasteland Into A Lush Green Forest
In 1988, Sabarmatee and her father Radhamohan bought an acre of degraded land in Nayagarh district of Odisha. They wanted to set up an experiment to see if a forest using organic techniques. Organic farming was not widespread in India at that time, therefore they had to rely on trial and error.

The Heart Of Today’s Billion-Dollar Sneaker-Collecting Boom Is 35 Years Old
Nowadays, sneakers aren’t just for wearing. They’re an asset class, on display at museums, and fueling an increasingly profitable resale market. Much of that traces back to Nike putting a superstar rookie’s name on a new pair of kicks in 1985.

How Oxford University Shaped Brexit — And Britain’s Next Prime Minister
You turn the pages of yellowing student newspapers from 30 years ago, and there they are, recognisably the same faces that dominate today’s British news. Boris Johnson running for Union president, Michael Gove winning debating contests, Jeremy Hunt holding together the faction-ridden Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).

How Lego Became The Apple Of Toys
In the last 10 years, Lego has grown into nothing less than the Apple of toys: a profit-generating, design-driven miracle built around premium, intuitive, highly covetable hardware that fans can’t get enough of. An exclusive look inside the company’s top-secret Future Lab.

My Restaurant Was My Life For 20 Years. Does The World Need It Anymore?
Forced to shutter Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton has been revisiting her original dreams for it — and wondering if there will still be a place for it in the New York of the future.

The Story Of A Baltimore Panhandler Murdering A Woman Made National News. The Truth Didn’t
Jacquelyn Smith was murdered, and not by the man on which her husband cannily tried to pin the crime—a homeless and powerless man. Baltimore’s most powerful institutions put a bizarre story to use for their purposes, shedding light on who counts in the city, and why.

How Our Home Delivery Habit Reshaped The World
The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully.

“The Turning Point”, Climate Change From A Different Perspective
“The Turning Point” explores climate change, the destruction of the environment and species extinction from a different perspective. Written, directed and animated by award-winning UK based illustrator and animator Steve Cutts.

Is Poverty Necessary?
Progress is dynamic, self-generating, unpredictable. Poverty is static, effectively resourceless, subject to interests that are not its own, therefore valuable to those interests.

My Journey Through Tijuana For The Best Surgery $2,000 Can Buy
We ended up living in northern Baja, joining the millions of people who commute between Tijuana and San Diego at the busiest international border crossing in the Western Hemisphere. Medical tourism is one of the leading industries connecting the two regions.

Going The Distance (And Beyond) To Catch Marathon Cheaters
Derek Murphy investigates runners whose times seem suspicious, which is what brought him to a 70-year-old doctor named Frank Meza. He’d run an exceptional time of 2 hours, 53 minutes that day, setting a record for the fastest marathon ever run by a man his age.

Inside The Dark, Lucrative World Of Debt Collection
A dizzying array of variables affects a portfolio of debt’s true potential — the age of the debt, how many agencies have tried to collect on it, the size of the balances, the type of credit card, where the debtors live and the current economic climate.

How To Prepare Now For The Complete End Of The World
Some people now are considering what it means to live in a world that could be shut down by a pandemic. But some people are already living like this. Some do it because they just like it. Some do it because they think the end has, in fact, already begun to arrive.
Some people now are considering what it means to live in a world that could be shut down by a pandemic. But some people are already living like this. Some do it because they just like it. Some do it because they think the end has, in fact, already begun to arrive.

The Invention Of Money
When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, he saw many wonders. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260.

Farmer’s Fridge Wants To Make Eating Healthy Food As Easy As Getting Money From An ATM
Farmer’s Fridge retrofits vending machines to serve up healthy foods — salads, sandwiches, granola, etc. — for people on the go. In order to ensure restaurant-quality food, Farmer’s Fridge has a chef on board who receives feedback from customers to constantly tweak the menu and the food.

The Great American Tax Haven: Why The Super-Rich Love South Dakota
Last year billionaire Sun Hongbin quietly transferred $4.5bn worth of shares in his Chinese real estate firm to a company on a street corner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Thanks to its relish for deregulation, the state is fast becoming the most profitable place for the mega-wealthy to park their billions.

New Technology In China Turns Desert Into Land Rich With Crops
China was praised for a law it passed in 2002 — the world’s first integrated law dedicated to combating desert expansion. With this goal in mind, China has carried out several projects that have been successful, including at one desert in northern China.

Barilla Pasta’s Turnaround From Homophobia To National Pride
After chairman Guido Barilla rebuked gay families on national radio, his CEO spent five years cleaning up the company’s reputation. Barilla transformed from a pasta giant that would never feature homosexuals in its campaigns into one that sells spaghetti in homoerotic packaging.

The Subtle Seduction Of The ‘Warm’ In Global Warming
In a report called “Most Like It Hot,” the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of Americans prefer to live in a city with a hot climate, and only 29 percent prefer cold locales. Could our collective preference for balmy weather be lulling us into a false sense of complacency toward climate change?