Birds of a Feather
The bittersweet story of Poe, an unusually articulate parrot.
Thus spake Albert
A piece looking at the prevalence of Albert Einstein aphorisms in the public consciousness_Ñ_at an extraordinary level even for someone of his stellar reputation. The story examines his sayings and how they were in some cases applied in his own life and times.
Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble
Talk about the Bitcoin bubble and fortunes made and lost is one thing (cf. the news this week that rapper 50 Cent was paid in Bitcoin for an album, forgot about it, and is now $8m richer), but this insightful piece proposes that the blockchain technology behind it can unlock things of far greater value.
Lake Chad: The World’s Most Complex Humanitarian Disaster
A thorough piece of reporting looking at a crisis caused by a toxic blend of issues – weak government, climate change, violent extremism, and structural weaknesses left behind by colonialism.
My year inside the international Alt-Right
The advocacy group Hope Not Hate infiltrated the alt-right movement and this is the story of their mole’s experiences, starting in the UK and expanding elsewhere. The piece is part of an investigation into the politics and personalities of the alt-right that runs wide and deep.
How Aristotle Created the Computer
A piece looking at the history of computers through ideas, rather than through devices – tracing the path from Aristotelian logic to computer science.
From Russia With Blood
An in depth investigation by Buzzfeed News into the death of a British fixer in London points to Russian involvement, and to the death being the ninth in a series amongst a group of people linked to Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch who turned against the Kremlin. The piece also suggests that the British government did not investigate the death fully, rapidly naming it a suicide and moving on.
Inside the Glowing-Plant Startup That Just Gave up Its Quest
The grand vision was to bioengineer plants that emitted enough light for practical purposes such as domestic lighting or street lamps. The vision did not come to pass.
MIA
The remarkable reappearance in Vietnam in 2008 of an American commando whose helicopter went down in Laos half a century before was not all that it seemed.