BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA In Vietnam, bear-bile is in high demand. Mixed into vodka as a status symbol, or ingested to reap a number of falsely-believed ‘medicinal benefits’, bear-bile serves a completely useless industry of ignorance and severe animal cruelty.…
The world’s most dangerous drug could turn anyone into a puppet without you even knowing
BY: VICTORIA STUNT You’re alone in a grey city plaza in the centre of Bogota, Colombia when a man comes to sit beside you. You get to chatting and after a while, he offers you a cigarette. You accept, and…
How Medellín used urban planning as a weapon to fight violent cartels and won
BY: VICTORIA STUNT A little girl, about three years old, is the only passenger on a miniature merry-go-round. The tiny horses are delicately painted. A tattered “Pilsen” beer umbrella is used to shade them, instead of the usual over-decorated roof…
Watch two death-defying daredevils fly jetpacks through the skies of Dubai in 4k
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Yves Rossy and Vince Reffet are one of the few people in the world with working jetpacks— and they have taken flying them to a fucking art form. Rossy, a forerunner in the field of propelled-human-flight, created…
A stalker stole my identity on Facebook, threatened my life and no one did shit
BY: NICOLE SCHMIDT It’s late. The sun had dipped behind the buildings of the London Ontario skyline hours ago and a dimly lit moon is suspended in its place. Illuminated by nothing but the faint glow of the sky, the…
Best friends build a village of tiny houses in the middle of nowhere
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA On the Llano River in Texas stands a line of houses testament to a 20-year friendship. Four couples decided that the suburban grind was getting in the way of what matters most in life—friends and family.…
Video games increase learning capacity, hand-eye coordination and response time
BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS Contrary to popular belief that video games can only have a negative effect on your brain and attention span, a new study has discovered the opposite: video games positively impact cognition, perception and attention. Researchers at the…
Design student invents a contraption that creates water from thin air
BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS An industrial design student in Vienna has created a product that uses the air’s moisture to fill a water bottle attached to a bike, but he has higher hopes than just fuelling bike riders travelling long distances:…
Meet the chef whose restaurant uses discarded food to feed the homeless instead of landfills
BY: MATTHEW CHIN One third of the food produced in the world is wasted, amounting to approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of waste stuffing landfills every year. In addition, 13.5 per cent—or 805 million people in the world—don’t have enough food and…
The DIY greenhouse of the future offers a year-round private oasis
BY: ROB HOFFMAN Francis Gendron recently launched a DIY sustainable greenhouse guide that makes it possible for anyone to construct their own indoor garden-house, built entirely out of recycled and natural materials, and powered entirely by renewable sources. Gendron’s guide…
An amazing underwater museum is conserving the ocean in the most haunting way possible
Just off the Mexican coastline, 28 feet below the ocean’s surface, stand over 500 life-sized sculptures making up MUSA: the worlds largest underwater museum. The project began with the objective of diverting divers and snorkelers away from the popular Mesoamerican…
Travelling is scientifically proven to make you healthier
BY: ZOE MELNYK If for some reason you need another reason to travel besides the thrill of adventure and the opportunity to explore the hidden corners of the world and your mind, try your health. Besides the obvious psychological benefits…
Young entrepreneurs are saving the rainforest with an incredible new alternative to coffee
BY: MATTHEW CHIN If you’re an avid coffee drinker, you might be disappointed to find out that every cup you drink destroys roughly 3cm2 of pristine rainforest. The Amazon is also one of the world’s largest producers of coffee, and…
Governor of Minnesota in the top 1% started taxing the rich and now the 99% are thriving
BY: DANIEL KORN In 2010, after previous unsuccessful political campaigns, Mark Dayton was finally elected as the Governor of Minnesota. In the years since, he has instated several progressive policies. Dayton has raised taxes on tobacco and individuals who make…
The top 5 vacation destinations for travellers addicted to the rush of adrenaline
BY MATTHEW CHIN This is not for the faint of heart, the couch-potatoes or the worry warts. This is for the bold, for the rebellious, and for those unafraid of staring death right in the face and laughing. If you…
This 26-year-old makes a living by train-hopping and capturing it all on Instagram
BY: ROB HOFFMAN 26 year-old Florida native, Molly Steele, was recently arrested for illegally hopping freight trains in El Dorado, Kansas. Sharing the experience on Instagram with nearly 40,000 followers, Steele’s Instagram features an envy-inducing catalogue of train-hopping, traveling and…
One man quit his high-paying desk job to become a dogwalker in the stunning Norwegian woods (Video)
BY: MATTHEW CHIN After nearly five years of working an office job in finance, Matt Hein quit and moved to Oslo, Norway. At 26, Hein realized there should be more to life than biting his nails in commuter traffic and…
This Major League baseball pitcher threw a no-hitter while tripping on LSD
BY: ROB HOFFMAN In one of the most memorable games in Major League baseball, Dock Ellis—a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates—threw a no-hitter while he was tripping on LSD. Ellis was an incredible player, and arguably an even greater person—a…
If you’re a born traveller, science says you may have the “wanderlust gene”
BY: MATTHEW CHIN If you’re the kind of person that feels compelled to travel—bound to an uncontrollable urge that flows through you, motivating you to drop everything and explore the world—chances are that desire is actually embedded in your genetic…
How “The Revolving Door” has made contemporary politics a puppet show
BY: MITCHELL THOMPSON The Federal government has attempted to stop revolving door practices by banning officials from working for companies that they had dealings with in their final year in office. However Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch argues that the…