The Pen and the Sword: Reporting ISIS
An insightful piece from the BBC World Affairs correspondent examines the complex ethical and editorial challenges of reporting on the horrors of the war waged by ISIS.
Why Earth’s History Appears So Miraculous
An ambitious piece looking at observer selection effect – where a data set’s composition or properties are correlated with the very existence of its observer. The first example the piece calls on is an analysis of planes returning from WWII bombing raids with the goal of identifying which areas of the fuselage to reinforce, but it rapidly expands in scope to extinction events for our world, and our universe.
The Drug Runners
The story of the Tarahumara people of Northern Mexico, used by drug cartels to smuggle due to their capacity to run extremely long distances.
Porambo
The remarkable life story of Ron Porambo, a crusading investigative journalist, whose achievements in reporting riots in 1960s Newark were eventually obscured by his own criminal exploits.
How Science Is Putting a New Face on Crime Solving
A wide ranging look at recent advances in criminal forensics, from using hair for DNA matches, to the value of teeth bite matches, fingerprinting, arson investigations and facial reconstruction.
The Preacher and the Sheriff
When he wasn’t satisfied with the answers to his questions about his son’s death in police custody, a preacher in Louisiana decided to investigate himself.
Welcome to the Center of the Universe
A look at the work of the Deep Space Network, the nerve center for all communications between Earth and its “its robotic emissaries in deep space – anything from the moon and beyond”.
Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet
Though it is currently the 7th most visited site in the world (and 4th in the US), it’s easy to underestimate the sheer scale of Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet”. That scale, and its anarchic traits, have made it the front line in figuring out what is acceptable online behaviour. This insightful and often darkly funny piece meets the people trying to draw the lines.
The Last of the Iron Lungs
A profile of three of the last polio sufferers in the US using an iron lung. The piece examines what life is like spent in one of these contraptions, used in a medical context for nearly 100 years.
UK General Election Special
Our election special provides a range of pieces from different publications on the coming week’s UK election – offering information, analysis and opinion from different viewpoints. We’ll keep adding noteworthy pieces that are published in the coming days.