BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Kolkata based photographer Debosmita Das first discovered the slum that runs along an active railroad on her route to work. The residents welcomed Das into their community and allowed her to photograph their dangerous lifestyle. In her…
This Is How Businesses Are Accommodating Your Wanderlust
BY: ALEKSANDRA TARABIC What do you think when you hear the phrase “distributed team?” A distributed team is a work force of a company or organization, distributed globally and running business 99% remotely. The remaining 1% is saved for that…
Amnesty says a Canadian mining company made profit off the eviction of thousands from their homes
BY: MITCHELL THOMPSON The US State Department says that during this time, Myanmar “continued to be ruled by a highly authoritarian military regime widely condemned for its serious human rights abuses. The military Government, known as the State Law and…
Irish activists are using clever street art to fight the ignorant opposition to gay marriage
BY: AOIFE RYAN For a small island nation with a population of just 4.5 million people, Ireland’s cultural and political reach has spread remarkably far across the globe. This year, May 22nd to be exact, the controversial marriage equality referendum…
This 17-year-old dropped out of school to become a modern-day shepherd in the Alps (Photos)
Photographer Clementine Schneidermann began photographing her brother six years ago when he dropped out of school at the age of 17, to become a shepherd and live in the mountains with his two dogs. For the first few years, Nicolas…
How to start and run your own skateboard company when you’re broke and frustrated
BY: PATRICK MALONEY When we first started up I was broke, frustrated, and confused. It was the best time ever. At one point my business partner at the time wandered away with a box of boards, sold them, and moved…
Wealthy businessman buys $8 million rescue boat and saves thousands of migrants in makeshift vessels
BY: MATTHEW CHIN Civil unrest in parts of the Middle East has left many citizens to gamble between makeshift boats on the open ocean and the danger ashore. Taking to the sea, many are trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea…
How a diagnosis put me on the other side of privilege and completely flipped my perspective
BY: JAKE KIVANC If you flip on the TV, the radio, scroll down a social media feed, you’ll see it: riots, protests, campaigns against inequality. What kind of inequality? Racial, sexual, gender-based inequality. Some of us have something to say,…
This family of 8 gave up consumerism to live together in a traveling school bus
BY: ZOE MELNYK We’ve all heard the phrase in Fight Club, “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” We hear that, and many of us nod in agreement, but then…
This former NASA engineer will use drones to plant 1 billion trees a year to save the world’s forests
BY: MATTHEW CHIN Deforestation is one of the largest contributors to global warming, with the forestry industry valued at $606 billion globally, according to the UN Food and Agricultre Organization. Not only are forests being cut down, but much of…
Why “Maple Syrup Rebels” are being prosecuted worse than drug dealers in Canada
BY: ZOE MELNYK Canada may be known for its easy going, low key demeanour, but there is an issue within Canada’s borders that is taking away people’s right to privacy and ruining the lives of private producers in a multi-million…
In the next few decades, babies could be born from artificial wombs outside the body
BY: DANIEL KORN Ectogenesis is the process of raising a fetus in an artificial womb outside the body. According to a 1987 paper by David N. James, the term was coined by British pop biologist J.B.S. Haldane in 1924. The…
Meet the man who is the only resident of this abandoned Irish island
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Omey Island is a tidal island located on the western edge of Connemara, in County Galway, Ireland. The island is almost hidden from the mainland although it is possible to drive or walk to. In the…
Welcome to Henn-na, the world’s first robot-staffed hotel
BY: DANIEL KORN It’s probably best to just accept the fact that the world we live in IS the future envisioned by 1960’s science fiction writers. One signifier of this is the increasing use of robots as human replacement, as…
14-year-old is assembling a Youth Army to take down the fossil fuel industry (Video)
BY: EDITORS When talking about the environment, oftentimes we tend to focus on the bitterness of men rather than the people playing to win, despite the poor hand they were dealt. “I’m a 14-year-old kid going up against a multi-million…
Liberland is the world’s newest self-proclaimed micro-nation where taxes are optional
BY: TJ MOREY As general knowledge, it’s a preconceived notion today that there is no piece of land that exists that is not already bound by the shackles of any particular nation. Either the land is already owned by a…
This modern family lives in a treehouse with trapdoors and zip lines (Photos)
BY: MATTHEW CHIN As a child growing up in the suburbs, a treehouse was only a distant fantasy since most trees would be next to a nearby road or in government-owned parks. I would watch shows like Arthur, red with…
In Thailand, violent prisoners can prize fight to reduce their life sentences
BY: DANIEL KORN PHOTOS BY: Aaron Joel Santos The prisoners of Thailand’s Klong Prem jail are murderers, gangsters, and drug traffickers. They’re also, occasionally, Muay Thai fighters. In prisons all around Thailand, the more physically-able convicts are given the opportunity…
Tattoo and street art giants gather at Denmark’s biggest underground art convention
BY: LEAH HANSEN Photos by: Galleri Grisk and Aarhus Art Convention His hands are speckled with colour from the spray of the can he’s been using for the past two days. What isn’t on his hands has made it onto…
Meet the couple that quit their jobs to become travel bloggers and haven’t stood still since (Photos)
BY: THE PLAID ZEBRA Jenna Spesard, 28, and Guillaume Dutilh, 30, didn’t want to fall in the mortgage debt hole that many find themselves stuck in with a greased up ladder. She was an executive assistant for a movie studio;…