An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly.
Listening to new music is hard. Not hard compared to going to space or war, but hard compared to listening to music we already know. Our brains reward us for seeking out what we already know. So why should we reach to listen to something we don’t?
British architecture firm Foster + Partners recently launched an initiative called #architecturefromhome, a series of free downloadable activities that hopes to share the whimsy and wonder of the built environment with screen-bound kids.
The restaurant industry is in a scary place, one that fairly guarantees heartbreak. We’re eating at street-corner stalls and food trucks, in front of the TV and at the grocery—everywhere but restaurants. They might not be here when we get back.
With such a focus on the physical concerns around vaping, the main psychoactive ingredient in e-cigarettes, nicotine, is often left out of the conversation. The addictive drug can boost your cognition and won’t give you cancer, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for casual use.
Could the company’s latest play to own the experience economy transport me virtually around the world? I made sangria with drag queens in Portugal, meditated with sleepy sheep in Scotland, and visited stray dogs in Ukraine to find out just how far Zoom-powered travel could take me.
Life in the 21st century, we are told, is faster than ever. Time is scarce, the pace of everyday life is accelerating, and everyone complains about how busy they are. For all the smart tech, we still feel pressed for time. Are digital services the problem, or are we humans to blame?
For the last 150 years, Pacific Gas & Electric has been playing political hardball to maintain its monopoly over California’s electricity. Last year, a PG&E power line ignited the Camp Fire, which killed 85 people, making it the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history.
Generations of Wang Ying’s family farmed the misty mountains of Liangshan, one of China’s poorest regions. But now, the 14-year-old girl lives on her own as the sole caretaker of her two younger siblings. They are among an estimated 9 million “left-behind children” raising themselves in the Chinese countryside.
For drivers, roads are safer than ever – but for people on foot, they are getting deadlier. In 2018, 41% more US pedestrians were killed than in 2008. Car companies and Silicon Valley claim that they have the solution. But is that too good to be true?
Gate Gourmet is one major player in the airplane catering game, feeding about 750 million passengers a year in about 60 countries. On a typical day at its Dulles International Airport branch, in suburban Washington, the company is responsible for getting 18,000 meals onto 275 flights.
After a decade of marriage, if things go well, you don’t need any more proof. What you have instead — and what I would argue is the most deeply romantic thing of all — is this palpable, reassuring sense that it’s okay to be a human being.
The City of Los Angeles has partnered with landscape product company Technisoil on a plan to pave roads with a new material called “plastic asphalt.” It’s a surfacing material that uses oil made from shredded plastic waste as its binder.
Austria-based studio Precht — previously known as Penda — has unveiled the design for a lush green park envisioned for physical distancing and short-term solitude. Dubbed Parc de la Distance, the open air space has been shaped in the form of a fingerprint, evoking human touch.
We live in a society where we are not aware of the amount of plastic around us. Four children, from 6 to 11 years old, in recognizable two-color environments, where the plastic that coexists naturally with us stand out. Nobody cares. The kids will tell us what we are doing with our oceans and our planet.
China is building islands in the South China Sea and its causing disputes among the other nations in the region; Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and Indonesia. To truly understand the international conflicts and trends shaping our world you need a big-picture view.
Goodyear developed the first tubeless tyre around 65 years ago. Now, it is working to develop a tyre that replaces itself when it wears out. The reCharge tyre is designed for a future where driverless cars are the norm – a future that may be fast approaching.
The president of Washington and Lee University, Will Dudley, understood the depth of his problem the moment he turned on the television and saw hoards of white men in collared shirts and khakis carrying tiki torches as they marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Once his stories go viral, the Facebook comments burst forth. And that’s when Christopher Blair the fake news writer becomes Christopher Blair the crusading left-wing troll. It’s then that he starts on the offensive. The faker becomes the exposer, weeding out and reporting the most extreme users among his fans.
Beeline for bicycles is a stripped back navigation device that makes finding your way by bike beautifully simple. Beeline’s intuitive navigation interface guides you with a clear arrow giving you just the information you need to find your way. Price: $125.
Fast fashion’s core business model is fueled by low prices, rapid consumption and fast-changing trends — all of which are in direct tension with its sustainability mission. The global fashion industry generates a huge amount of waste – one full garbage truck of clothes is burned or sent to a landfill every second.
Despite Ontario’s recent minimum wage increase, workers are still struggling to make ends meet. Even for those who have full-time jobs, earning minimum wage means they have to make a lot of difficult choices.
Only three people have ever reached the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean. The deep is a world without sunlight, of freezing temperatures, and immense pressure. It’s remained largely unexplored until now. Cutting-edge technology is enabling a new generation of aquanauts to go deeper than ever before.
The US filmmaker Scott Calonico obtained a cache of photographs from security service records of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). One sequence in these never-before-seen images shows the arrest of a West German couple and the East German family they were trying to smuggle out in the boot of their car on 3 September 1988.
Philip Roth’s classic novel, newly adapted by HBO, envisions a world in which Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election. Roth’s account of a celebrity-turned-politician winning the presidency on a platform of fearmongering and “othering” proved more prophetic than he could have predicted.
Whether you’re cruising in for a six-pack, or you live in the big city and depend on your corner store for, well, just about everything, they’ve usually got you covered. But how do they survive selling nothing but inexpensive merchandise?
Cultures without numbers, or with only one or two precise numbers, include the Munduruku and Pirahã in Amazonia. Researchers have also studied some adults in Nicaragua who were never taught number words. What can these anumeric cultures teach us about ourselves?
Forest City is being built in the Malaysian state of Johor in the southern part of the country. Here, the Johore Strait acts as a natural border between Malaysia and the independent city-state Singapore. It is one of the most ambitious urban development projects currently underway. An entire new city built from scratch.
During the 90s, traffickers started shipping their drugs through Central America and over land to Mexico. That created a violent and competitive turf war between gangs and organizations in Guatemala and Honduras, and after the governments cracked down, violence only increased, forcing people to flee, often to the US.
A former Titan II missile complex, the complex is a fixer upper and ready to become one of the few homes that once stood ready to pummel America’s enemies with the destructive force of 9,000,000 tons of TNT. The realtor posted a listing price of just $395,000.
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.
A series of shocks has exposed weak links in our food chain that threaten to leave grocery shelves as patchy and unpredictable as those in the former Soviet bloc. The very system that made possible the bounty of the American supermarket suddenly seems questionable, if not misguided.
One of the most important events in the decline and fall of the USSR was the August Coup of 1991 which saw its Vice President attempt to overthrow its president, Mikhail Gorbachev. It didn’t go too well and was hastily planned but the fact that it ended peacefully is frankly nothing short of miraculous.
Traffic modeling is a complex branch of applied mathematics, partially because it assumes that drivers are selfish and pursuing their own goals, rather than any predictable or shared efforts.
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.
Living apart together has its tangled roots in both the aristocracy and queer culture, and its contemporary branch comprises couples looking to prioritize individualism and moments of intentional solitude as features of longterm relationships, not roadblocks to togetherness.
The first known case of humans going to court over investment losses triggered by autonomous machines will test the limits of liability. A Hong Kong tycoon is going after the salesman who persuaded him to entrust his fortune to the supercomputer whose trades cost him more than $20 million.
Talking meetings have much merit, but can also be subject to a host of problems. Current research supports the benefits of holding a “silent meeting” as one way of better leveraging the ideas, perspectives, and insights of organizational talent.
Steve McCurry has been one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography for more than thirty years, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books, and countless exhibitions around the world to his name. These stunning photos were taken during his trip to Afghanistan.
Why do some people so clearly have it and others don’t? Why do we fall so easily under its influence? Charismatics can make us feel charmed and great about ourselves. They can inspire us to excel. But they can also be dangerous. They use charisma for their own purposes, to enhance their power, to manipulate others.
