Just as the US seems to be turning away from trying to make contact with extra-terrestrial life, China has built a huge custom radio dish for the very purpose. The author visits the dish, examines China’s long history of astronomy and reviews its current attempts to drive scientific innovation.
A piece on the United States government’s investigation into Evgeniy Bogachev, a bank robbing hacker, and his possible involvement in the hacking activity during the 2016 US Election.
The story of two men who set out to convert their Catholic megachurch in Medellin, Colombia to Orthodox Judaism.
A look at the ministry of Rich Wilkerson Jr, the pastor favoured by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, along with other celebrity friends.
A piece describing itself aptly as ‘A brief history of chairs’, looking at how different societies approach the act of sitting.
An interview with a professor who researched a recent book through numerous interviews with people living in rural communities in Wisconsin. These conversations convinced her that while fact-driven policy did come into their electoral choices, it had far less impact than fundamental questions of identity, tied up in numerous issues, but boiling down to – “Who am I for, and who am I against?”.
A look at the work of Germany’s Bamf, the agency with the thorny task of deciding which refugees receive permission to remain in their country. They have many techniques at their disposal, some that can establish identity with little doubt, many more that can only offer “Hinweis” – a clue as to the truth of the story they’re being told.
The story of how a parent teacher association head was allegedly framed for possession of hard drugs by parents with a grudge. The story seems at times to be straight out of a legal procedural TV show – one of the accused writes self-published crime novels in which she imagines ingeniously executed crimes, a firefighter lover arrives at the accused’s house for a tryst at the same time as the police and has to make a hasty exit – and yet it is not.
A 2014 piece examining repression and persecution taking place in Russia.