BY: TYLER FYFE One of the hardest parts of being vegetarian is that the menus of most major city restaurants are designed against you. To add insult to injury, dinnertime with meat-lovers inevitably turns into debate club. So ex-Stanford biochemistry…
If you’re addicted to winter, this company will build an all-day snow cave in your house
BY: TREVOR HEWITT The traditional heated sauna is getting a cool new facelift. While those in desert climates can’t exactly hop out of a steam bath and roll around outside in the snow like their Scandinavian counterparts, they now have…
This manager’s mobile office space lets you work out of a new location every day
BY: ROB HOFFMAN There can be a balance between a realistic income and idealist lifestyle. Freedom means autonomy of travel—thousands of office-jockeys with the stale taste of uniform life have driven a demand for smaller, mobile workspaces, which are happily…
Apartheid era minister seeks controversial repentance by serving a community he once brutalized
BY: SWIKAR OLI For many, Adriaan Vlok was among those most feared in the apartheid era. He was the law and order minister for five years, for which he was the face of terror. His job was to quietly snuff…
How these insane work habits were responsible for the success of this legendary novelist
BY: ADRIAN SMITH It wasn’t until after Honoré de Balzac gave up his banal work routine that he became the pioneer of realism—a major genre in literature—and one of the greatest novelists and playwrights of all time. Under traditional work…
Turns out earthworms are doing more to fight climate change than most people
BY: SYDNEY MCINNIS Climate change – it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. In this case, that someone is the misunderstood, soil-dwelling earthworm. Microbes, which are tiny, single-celled organisms, live alongside worms, buried beneath the earth’s soil.…
Rwanda’s capital city has permanently made major city areas completely car-free
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Congestion of central areas in many large cities is a rising issue. Vehicles are packed like sardines, making travel slow and dangerous, while pedestrians are made to inhale the fumes of thousands of gas-guzzling cars. In many…
In order to avoid online dating, I tried stone-age Tinder— also known as Speed Dating.
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Since about the time it came out, I have remained heavily anti-Tinder. Of course I would never pass judgment on those who actually use it, I just personally have zero interest in receiving dick pics from self-righteous…
Turns out anxiety-ridden over-worriers have a much higher capacity for creativity and imagination
BY: ROB HOFFMAN Overthinking, neurotic, worry-obsessed and anxious—according to a new study, these are the faces of creativity. This is good news for people who identify with an exhaustively over-worried personality, offering a fair trade between creative intellect and happiness.…
Sweden makes moves to completely discontinue fossil fuel use and run entirely off renewables
BY: ROB HOFFMAN Sweden just released its 2016 budget, which is likely to break a few hearts in the oil sector. The budget, which was made public a few weeks back, reveals plans to spend an additional $546 million (US)…
2 hrs in nature could save you from being one of the 5 billion with vision problems by 2050
BY: JESSICA BEUKER By the year 2050 half of the world’s population—an estimated five billion—will be nearsighted. Of those people, one billion falls into a high-risk category, putting them at severe risk for permanent blindness. There are however, preventative measures…
Engineers just developed nano-robots that can reduce CO2 levels by 88% in seawater
BY: SWIKAR OLI The hard work of nano-engineers at the University of California, San Diego may bring us as close as we’ve ever been to reducing harmful CO2 levels in the ocean. Lab results show the nano-robots converted 90 per…
NASA just released over 8,400 historic photos of the Apollo mission that will give you chills
BY: DAVID LAO Over 8,400 unprocessed photos of the Apollo space project have just been released on image-sharing service Flickr as part of the Project Apollo Archive, a photo gallery documenting Apollo missions 7 to 17. The Flickr account containing…
This university is creating a forested campus to give students a green-oasis in the city
BY: ROB HOFFMAN In Ho Chi Minh City, a vast city with a population akin to that of New York City, an architectural firm is changing the norm of building-design to promote a more ecologically sound agenda. FPT University has…
This 28-year old pro surfer lives out of a 20-foot, self-sustaining yurt with his dog in California
BY: ROB HOFFMAN Chadd Konig is the poster child for a simple, sustainable and incredibly fulfilling lifestyle, which includes catching surf in the cold Northern California Ocean and maintaining his three-acre farm and 20 foot cylindrical yurt. To complete the…
Bathe in the utter glory of this year’s best photography from travellers around the globe
BY: CONNOR BRIAN Self-determined and self-motivated, these travellers have embodied the words of Henry Miller, that “one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” The following is a series of finalists from the annual photography…
California puts an expiry date on SeaWorld by banning the breeding of killer whales
BY: JESSICA BEUKER On Thursday, the California Coastal Commission approved a $100 million expansion of killer whale tanks in SeaWorld San Diego—but with conditions. In a last minute amendment that followed the daylong meeting, the commission banned the breeding…
This genius artist created the most provocative public awareness project you have ever seen
BY: CONNOR BRIAN Photos: © Erik Ravelo The image of an obese eight-year-old boy nailed to the back of Ronald McDonald is a provocative one, and is part of a series of photos that has managed to spark wide debate…
World’s best teacher doesn’t believe in tests and lets kids choose what they learn
BY: JESSICA BEUKER There is a school in the rural town of Edgecomb, Maine that is unlike any other. Every classroom has a library, there are no standardized tests, and every religious and cultural holiday is not only respected, but…
How to become a confident public speaker with this simple 5 minute technique
BY: ROB HOFFMAN **This article is the first instalment of a weekly column that explores effective techniques of communication, persuasion, and self-help using a background of NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) to understand and influence the subconscious language patterns of the people…