Spent the day reading Tess of the Road and also The Wonder Engine

Life is good.

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To keep the Dakota language alive, a young woman looks to preschoolers

Japanese electric toilet symbols go global

The Rise Of Yeast: How Civilization Was Shaped By Sugar Fungi

World's first plastic-free aisle opens in Netherlands supermarket

The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

An Ancient Virus May Be Responsible for Human Consciousness

The story of the PDF, the portable document format that’s become one of the internet’s defining information formats. It’ll be with us after we’re long gone.

How to Sort Lentils

What a Chart of Urine Tells Us About the History of Color Printing

One in four teens are sexting, a new study shows. Relax, researchers say, it’s mostly normal.

A Homeless Camp in Our Back Yard? Please, a University Says

Flood risk from American rivers is greatly underestimated

Trump Thought the Rules Didn’t Apply—and Now He’s Paying the Price

State Department launches $40 million initiative to counter Russia election meddling

Virtual reality improves offenders' empathy

Inside the secret lives of functioning heroin addicts

From fisherman to smuggler: How ocean pollution fuels Tunisian migration

The Surprisingly Compelling Argument for Open Borders

Asylum seeker in detention sues U.S. administration over family separation

At French Outpost in African Migrant Hub, Asylum for a Select Few

Syria conflict: Women 'sexually exploited in return for aid'

How efforts to block refugees and asylum-seekers from Europe have only made the global migration crisis more complex and harrowing.

People smuggler gives chilling warning to undercover CNN reporter (Content warning: it's about rape)

The EPA will shutter center that distributes grants to test effects of chemicals on children

Trump's EPA Concludes Environmental Racism Is Real

Why is Nigeria Experiencing a Record-High Outbreak of Lassa Fever?

We studied thousands of anonymous posts about the Parkland attack — and found a conspiracy in the making

Palantir has secretly been using New Orleans to test its predictive policing technology

Rights group alleges China using big data as repression tool

Xi for life? China turns its back on collective leadership.

Inside a Broken Police Department in Flint, Michigan

Rio military deployment stirs controversy in Brazil

When whisper networks let us down

Question about the Book of Esther

This bugs me every time I think of it, which is surprisingly often once I bothered to look it up and find out the whole story as to why the farmer's market bakery stand is overtaken by hamantaschen every year.

So after the happy ending, the evil vizier is defeated yay, King Dim Bulb lets the Jews go out and preemptively murder literally tens of thousands of people who might pose a risk to them. Are we all supposed to just assume there was no unpleasant backlash to this action? Even if they only got the exact targets who virulently hated them and were actively plotting genocide as well... I mean... those targets had families and friends and all, right? And the innocent bystanders on either side probably were a little upset over all the blood. (I suppose that the likely consequences would make a depressing coda to the general merriment, but still.)

An open letter to my nieces:

Just because you didn't listen to me doesn't mean I didn't tell you.