Political Irresponsibility is Killing the Aral Sea
The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest inland sea. It exists now as an expanding toxic desert that straddles the borders of Kazakhstan…
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The surprising academic origins of memes
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Instagram is making you a worse tourist
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Trillions of cigarette butts are littered each year and it’s damaging environment
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Ancient Tattooing in Polynesia: World’s oldest toolkit found in Tonga
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Brutalism in Tangier, Morocco’s most artistic city
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Tea and Heroin with a Tribal Chief in Al Qaeda Territory
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Collage art and activism in Chile: Instagram posts building on the legacy of Latin American ‘mail art’
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Democracy in the Animal Kingdom. Read how animals vote to make group decisions
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Toilet graffiti: secrets, support and solidarity in the women’s restroom
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Berlin Wall: how techno music united Germany on the dance floor
In the wake of the demolition of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, something strange and wonderful happened. Youth from both East and West…
How To Have Sex: landmark film wants to change how we talk about consent
Written and directed by Molly Manning Walker, How to Have Sex is a powerful rites-of-passage drama that follows the tale of three 16-year-old girls…
A Sinister Time Capsule Marked for the Year 12,038
Imagine a time capsule that you’re sealing away, but instead of planning to open it in a decade or two, you want it to…
Politics and fashion: the rise of the red beret
Bobi Wine has come a long way in two years. The self-styled “Ghetto President” of Uganda used to be a music star, playing politically…
In Iran and beyond, arrests of singers and dancers show how music can be a powerful tool of resistance
Iranian women are prohibited from singing and dancing in public. Yet many are posting videos on social media dancing and singing along to singer…
An Interview with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (TEED) has carved a hole for himself in left-field dance music. Sitting somewhere between glistening pop and quirky house, Totally Enormous Extinct…
We Out Here review: respect for music and culture at its core
There was no better place to celebrate ‘Radio 6 Dad’ culture – and 50 years of hip hop – than Gilles Peterson’s We Out…
Hyper-femininity can be subversive and empowering – just ask Barbie
I found Barbie again during 2020’s COVID lockdown. Indoors, confined to Juicy Couture tracksuits, I was missing excuses to express my hyper-femininity through clothing,…
Awesome Tapes From Africa: An Interview with Brian Shimkovitz
Brian Shimkovitz has spent the last decade building Awesome Tapes From Africa from a small blog into a record label. Along the way, Shimkowitz…
Overfishing, Conservation, Sustainability, and Farmed Fish
by Coty Perry As with many other aspects of government policy, overfishing and other fishing-related environmental issues are a real problem, but it’s not…
Imperialism in a coffee cup
Mainstream politics in Europe and North America is increasingly divided into two hostile camps: on one side are conservative reactionaries who glorify imperialism and…
Jennifer Cardini: Bridging Gaps One Dance at a Time
“Transformation, 1994, Limelight in Cannes, South of France. It’s one of the club hits for me that was playing at that time when I…
James Webb telescope: a scientist explains what its first, amazing images show – and how it will change astronomy
After decades of development and many trials and frustrations along the way, the James Webb telescope has finally started to deliver what it came…
Microplastics in our plate: We are consuming microplastics in ways we don’t even realise
We’re increasingly aware of how plastic is polluting our environment. Much recent attention has focused on how microplastics – tiny pieces ranging from 5…
