Dark Crystals: The Brutal Reality Behind A Booming Wellness Craze
Demand for ‘healing’ crystals is soaring – but many are mined in deadly conditions in one of the world’s poorest countries, like Madagascar. And there is little evidence that this billion-dollar industry is cleaning up its act.
That Wonderful Summer
On July 4, 1988, FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States. At the time, there was no top-flight professional league in the U.S., and it had been 38 years since the country had participated in a World Cup. As a condition for awarding the tournament, FIFA required the United States to create a new professional league.
Why Ban Dollar Stores?
Dollar-discount stores get the blame for “food deserts”—neighborhoods without supermarkets. It’s claimed, these stores drive out supermarkets with their low prices and saturate poor neighborhoods with junk food. But are dollar stores really to blame for bad diets?
How Campbell’s Soup Changed Tomatoes’ DNA For The Worse
The perfect tomato to eat is red, plump, juicy, and bursting with flavor. When mass-produced, tomatoes also have to be easy to remove from the vine. That is why the Campbell Soup Company cultivated a variety with a genetic mutation more than a half-century ago.
Kidney Stone Drug Found To Starve Pancreatic Cancer Cells To Death
A research team at Columbia University has made an exciting discovery, finding that a compound currently under development for a rare kidney stone disease can starve pancreatic cancer cells of a key amino acid they depend on, a technique that proved to stop tumor growth in mice.
Cryptoqueen: How This Woman Scammed The World, Then Vanished
Ruja Ignatova called herself the Cryptoqueen. She told people she had invented a cryptocurrency to rival Bitcoin, and persuaded them to invest billions. Then, two years ago, she disappeared. Jamie Bartlett spent months investigating how she did it and trying to figure out where she’s hiding.
How Many Murders Can A Police Informer Get Away With?
Northern Irish paramilitary Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty to hundreds of violent crimes, including many killings – while working for the British state. They included five murders; five attempted murders; one count of aiding and abetting murder.
Remente, Personal Growth And Development App
Remente is a system of tools and insights to help you lead a richer, happier and healthier life, based on how the brain works and performs. Maintain focus and direction while managing stress and work-life balance, all in one app. Tasks, routines, goals and habits in one place.
Is Big Tech Good For Your Health?
Health care is in the midst of a digital revolution and it is generating an ocean of data. Tech giants including Google and Microsoft want to work with hospitals and health-care systems to improve lives. But should people trust them with their medical data?
Murder And Manifest Destiny On The Mosquito Coast
In 1999, a mysterious Greek entrepreneur bought and resold a series of tiny islands off the coast of Nicaragua, setting off a bizarre and tragic chain of events that included a reality-TV sensation and allegations of an insidious murder plot. The ensuing chaos brought to light a centuries-old question: Who does land really belong to?
Hangover Inc.: The Companies Getting You Over Last Night
Once a hush-hush luxury for the quietly-pampered, banana bags outside the hospital are hitting the mainstream. Nurses stand ready to provide intravenous care to the dehydrated, alcoholically and otherwise, in their homes and hotel rooms, at walk-in centers and on a hangover bus for special events.
Killer, Kleptocrat, Genius, Spy: The Many Myths Of Vladimir Putin
Putin’s recent ubiquity has brought great prominence to the practice of Putinology. This enterprise – the production of commentary and analysis about Putin and his motivations, based on necessarily partial, incomplete and sometimes entirely false information – has existed as a distinct intellectual industry for over a decade.
The Strange Persistence Of First Languages
Czech was the only language I knew until the age of 2, when my family began a migration westward, from what was then Czechoslovakia through Austria, then Italy, settling eventually in Montreal, Canada. Along the way, a clutter of languages introduced themselves into my life.
Arctic: New Frontier
Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen travelled through 15,000km of the Arctic Circle, investigating the startling effects of climate change on the land and its indigenous communities. If temperatures continue to rise, scientists expect that the North Pole will be ice-free in summer by 2040.
Singapore Is Building A City In China
It’s located in Southern China but it’s actually a partnership between China and Singapore. It’s called, Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, or SSGKC. In the next 20 years, the countries project it will have a population of 500,000. A whopping figure considering the farmlands were formerly home to just 40,000 residents.
Photographer Captures 40 Days Of Arctic Circle Darkness
Armed with his iPhone 11, photojournalist Amos Chapple plunged into the darkness of the Arctic Circle. Chapple spent 40 nights in Murmansk, Russia, which sees 24 hours of darkness every year from December 2 until January 11.
The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign To Reelect The President
After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.
The End Of Farming?
Over the past 20 years or so, ad hoc coalitions of politicians, activists and conscience-stricken billionaires, have rewilded millions of acres of mostly failed agricultural and grazing land. Their guiding philosophy upends the long-dominant view that land should be cleared, plowed and wrung ever more efficiently for food.
How To Survive 75 Hours Alone In The Ocean
In n February 2006, Robert Hewitt was scuba diving near Mana Island, off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Amazingly, Hewitt spent the next 75 hours in the water, drifting back and forth over a distance of nearly 40 miles before he was spotted by Navy diving friends and rescued.
Red Sea Diving Resort: The Holiday Village Run By Spies
Arous was an idyllic holiday resort in the Sudanese desert, on the shores of the Red Sea. But this glamorous destination was also a base for Israeli agents with a secret mission. The events inspired a newly released Netflix film, Red Sea Diving Resort – and the real story is in many ways more remarkable.
The Doomsday Glacier
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.