Iceland’s Big Bitcoin Heist
With its cheap geothermal energy and low crime rate, Iceland has become the world’s leading miner of digital currency. Then the crypto-crooks showed up. The thieves weren’t robbing banks. They were stealing the presses that print digital money.
Is Technology Scrambling My Baby’s Brain?
During the first two years of a baby’s life, its brain triples in weight, marking a period of explosive growth that will never be matched again in its life. Those early years are a crucial time for mental development, setting the foundation for adulthood.
The Man At The Center Of Brussels Spy Probe
A flamboyant former EU ambassador with a fondness for plaid bow ties and a taste for the finer things in life, Gerhard Sabathil is the man German authorities suspect was at the center of a clandestine Chinese operation aimed at delivering European secrets to Beijing.
How The Doomed Masa Son-Adam Neumann Relationship Set WeWork On The Road To Disaster
For Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, Neumann was the prodigal son he never had, with a wild-eyed vision to rival Son’s own. The inside story of how it all went wrong.
The Air Conditioning Trap: How Cold Air Is Heating The World
Warmer temperatures lead to more air conditioning; more air conditioning leads to warmer temperatures. The problem posed by air conditioning resembles, in miniature, the problem we face in tackling the climate crisis. The solutions that we reach for most easily only bind us closer to the original problem.
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.
What Happens If You Commit A Murder While Sleepwalking?
It seems impossible — a person unconsciously killing another person and having no knowledge of his actions the following morning — but according to legal defense teams, it isn’t just a possibility, but a reality.
The Great Whiskey Heist
A police investigation rippled throughout greater Frankfort, Kentucky, revealing a web of theft that ensnared husbands and wives, fathers and sons, CrossFit instructors and jealous ex-girlfriends — and lots of locals with stolen whiskey on their shelves.
The Rise And Fall Of Subway
With thousands of store closures in the last three years and petitions against Subway from its franchise owners, the fast-food chain with the most locations globally seems to be on the rocks. This video unpacks what’s going on and where Subway’s headed from here.
The Trillion-Dollar Auction To Save The World
Ocean creatures soak up huge amounts of humanity’s carbon mess. Should we value them like financial assets? Governments could confer legal rights on nature, effectively giving ecosystems the right to sue for damages—and incentivizing polluters to not damage them.
The Dark Side Of Electronic Waste Recycling
Electronics can be hazardous when disposed of improperly, and the Basel Action Network, or BAN, investigates the underground world of the e-waste trade. The nonprofit group secretly embeds trackers in discarded devices, then hands them to recyclers to see where they end up, exposing bad practices in the process.
I Fled Yugoslavia In 1941. Then I Returned to Join the Resistance.
After the Germans consolidated in northwestern Yugoslavia, I left New York for London, crushed by the news of what was going on. I told my parents I was returning to Yugoslavia to become a freedom fighter.
How Small Farmers Are Fighting To Keep Vermont’s Identity Alive
Not much says “America” more than the small dairy farm, and Vermont has spent decades selling that image. Increasingly, it’s a relic of a bygone era. As of the third quarter of 2019, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets had accounted for only 675 dairy farms in the state.
Kudos, Leaderboards, QOMs: How Fitness App Strava Became A Religion
Strava is a fitness and sports tracking platform that launched in 2009 and bills itself the “number one app for runners and cyclists”. The app offers community, training data and motivation to millions of athletes. Even runners who dislike tech can’t bear to be without it.
Extreme Loneliness Or The Perfect Balance? How To Work From Home And Stay Healthy
More and more people are working where they live and living where they work, attracted by the promise of greater flexibility. Beyond the lack of interaction with colleagues – there are no ideas by osmosis, no overhearing others talking – there is also the lack of interaction with the wider world.
Will The Millennial Aesthetic Ever End?
In this era, you come to understand, design was the product. Whatever else you might be buying, you were buying design, and all the design looked the same.
The Wonder Drug for Aging, Made From One of the Deadliest Toxins on Earth
Botox is derived from a toxin purified from Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that thrives and multiplies in faultily canned food. The botulinum toxin is so powerful that a tiny amount can suffocate a person by paralyzing the muscles used for breathing. That’s part of what protects Allergan’s $2.8 billion Botox empire.
The ‘Hidden Mechanisms’ That Help Those Born Rich To Excel In Elite Jobs
Sociologists Daniel Laurison and Sam Friedman have uncovered a striking, consistent pattern in data about England’s workforce: Not only are people born into working-class families far less likely than those born wealthy to get an elite job—but they also, on average, earn 16 percent less in the same fields of work.
The Rise And Fall Of Pan Am
Pan Am was once the largest international airline in the US. In 1970 alone, it carried 11 million passengers to 86 countries worldwide. But after 60 years of flight, decades of financial turbulence, and a devastating terrorist attack above the skies of Lockerbie, Scotland, Pan Am went bust.
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.
Korvaa Is The World’s First Headphones “Grown” From Bio-based Materials
Helsinki-based multidisciplinary design studio Aivan recently unveiled Korvaa, the world’s first headphones made exclusively from microbially grown materials. Created using synbio, Korvaa is the first physical implementation of the technology and marks a potential shift away from a fossil fuel-based economy.