China is perhaps one of the most polarized landscapes, home to the strikingly beautiful Yellow Mountains and Great Wall of China, yet in other parts pollution runs rampant and completely unchecked. Unregulated dumping in various watersheds throughout China is fairly…
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Dan Mangan talks about fatherhood, philosophy and saying something worthwhile
BY: TYLER FYFE Dan Mangan is a two-time Juno award winner, Polaris Music Prize nominee, and occasional Arts and Culture writer for The Guardian and Huffington Post. Recently, he released his fourth LP, Club Meds and it is pretty obvious…
Why basic income is the solution to the staggering disparity of wealth
BY: DANIEL KORN We’ve got a big problem. It’s called income inequality; I assume you’ve heard of it. President Obama called it “the defining challenge of our time,” and the Occupy movement rallied around the statistic that the richest 1%…
This hermit survived for 27 years in the woods by stealing canned goods from nearby homes
BY: TED BARNABY For 27 years, canned food, propane tanks and odd clothing articles had been disappearing from the houses of the quiet town of North Pond in Central Maine. Rebellious teenagers were the first suspect, and a few of…
When the world’s largest landfill closed, a city of garbage pickers collapsed
BY: SINEAD MULHERN Sifting through the rot you never know what you might find. When garbage is your specialty, the smell becomes normal, you eat among it sharing space with the vultures and watch for sharp discards jutting out from…
At this college, students hire their professors, ride horses, and study for free
BY: TYLER FYFE A single scar of asphalt runs the length of the basin of the Inyo-White Mountains in the isolated desert of Eastern California. This is the only road in or out and located thirty miles from the nearest…
This 21-year-old pro baseball player is a millionaire who lives out of a VW camper van
BY: ZOE MELNYK After receiving a $2 million signing bonus with the Toronto Blue Jays, Daniel Norris decided to hit the road with his new dream car—a 1978 Volkswagen Westfalia camper van—which incidentally, is also his new dream home. 21-year-old…
This water filtration straw allows you to drink the world’s dirtiest water like a juice box (Video)
BY: KHADIJA KHAN Imagine sipping dirty water filled with feces, bacteria, disease and dead insects but instead tasting pure, clean, filtered water. Instant filtration is impossible, right? Now the LifeStraw by Vestergaard is rapidly changing the way we think about water…
Why Canada just legalized assisted suicide
BY: TYLER FYFE The Supreme Court of Canada lifted the criminal ban on doctor-assisted suicide today granting previously barred rights to those suffering the “irremediable” pain of a terminal illness. This comes at the realization that subjecting citizens to laws…
How Walmart, Target and GNC got away with selling fake supplements
BY: TED BARNABY If you live in the U.S., you’ve probably felt the pressure of a system where money is more than just a means to an end—it’s also the currency of many moral, political and even legal issues. So…
This unregulated California commune is widely known as “the last free place in America” (Photos)
BY: TED BARNABY Welcome to Slab City, widely known as “the last free place in America.” The entrance is marked by a small hill caked with eccentric acrylic paint, promising love and preaching faith, all in bright pink letters. This…
How to fall asleep in under one minute using this simple breathing pattern
BY: TED BARNABY If you’re like me, it probably takes you anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to fall asleep at night. However, I recently learned a breathing pattern that allows me to fall asleep in as little as…
22-year-old Hunter S. Thompson tells you the meaning of life
When Hunter S. Thompson was 22 years old, he was contacted by a friend looking for advice on the meaning of life. His response was bizarrely profound, especially for his age, packing the punch of a heavyweight philosopher or seasoned-author.…
Science proves getting high on magic mushrooms may help cure depression
BY: TED BARNABY Seeking treatment for depression is both frustrating and discouraging: you walk into the doctor’s office, answer a few questions, followed by a prescription of any number of anti-depressants which, after six weeks of taking them, will either…
This family lives on a floating fortress of greenhouses in the middle of the ocean
BY: ROB HOFFMAN In Clayoquot Sound, BC, tucked away in the coastal inlets of Cypress Bay, and about a half-hour by boat off the coast of Tofino, live Catherine King and Wayne Adams—the owners and operators of Freedom Cove. Freedom Cove…
Toronto hosts naked book readings
BY: MICHAEL LYONS I’m stripped down to my underwear in front of a room full of friends and strangers. “I’m unfortunately not going to get completely naked,” I say. There’s a quizzical murmur; the event, after all, is titled “Naked…
This man lost his wife and his job, so he took an epic motorcycle journey until the road ran out (Photos)
BY: TED BARNABY About four months ago, 26 year-old Sebastiaan de With and his friend, Stuart Philkill, returned from a motorcycle trip that captured the interest and imagination of young adventurers across the world. The photo gallery—highly popularized by Reddit…
People are actually wearing Kurt Cobain’s suicide note on their T-shirt for style points
BY: SINEAD MULHERN One of the Internet’s latest incomprehensibly stupid people has taken Kurt Cobain’s suicide letter, printed it on T-shirts and sold it on Etsy. Twitter exploded after one user tweeted a photo of the shirt along with the…
This company will turn your loved one’s corpse into a diamond after they die
BY: DANIEL KORN My uncle had this dog, a King Charles cavalier spaniel, who died when I was a kid. The next time we visited him at his house in Ottawa, my mom noticed he had this urn on his…
You can live for free in this beautiful gypsy cave-village in Spain (photos)
BY: TED BARNABY In the hills above Granada, Spain, lives a bright community of cave-dwelling free spirits occupying the tall white rock of Sacromonte. Their homes are a mix of rustic, simple beauty, and claustrophobia. Windows are often scarce in…