Side View: A new generation of military super-sniffers

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

“Grit” was hailed as a key new indicator of educational and life success. Other academics are calling bullshit. Shakira Hussein experiences apocalypse at the pathology clinic. The relentless encouragement of fitness is a product of neoliberalism — but is that such a bad thing?

There’s a deep split between Democrats and Republicans over getting the vaccine in the US, but it’s complicated. Is driving the last frontier of human freedom against automation? Hmmm. The ideal soldier should be able to smell the difference between vegetarians and meat-eaters.

BAD POLICY OUTCOMES

Northern Ireland’s paramilitary gangs have worked out how to game the country’s social housing policies to carry out sectarian cleansing and control crime they don’t profit from. And what’s Brexit’s role in the surge in violence in NI in recent weeks?

Trump said it would be the eighth wonder of the world. Even more so than most of his lies, this one turned out to be bullshit. It’s time to crack down on politicians’ use of non-official communications platforms to evade accountability.

MYTHBUSTING

Nomadland might have dominated the Oscars, and nomadism might hold romantic appeal to white Western societies, but in the UK real nomads are demonised. Thirty five years on, five myths about Chernobyl busted (and some good news: children of Chernobyl clean-up crews aren’t showing genetic impacts).

Why did successive US administrations — until Joe Biden’s — refuse to describe the Armenian Genocide as genocide? And how the Western left gets the history of Afghanistan wrong.

POWER AND ITS ABUSES

Celeste Liddle on the experience of racism within families. When “the consumability of culture is the currency of humanity” — how social media channels protest against injustice into consumerism and commodification.

Neha Kale on high school debating and the reinforcement of male power. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the threat of domestic terrorism… from within its own ranks.

MARVELLOUS WHAT THEY CAN DO THESE DAYS

How did they send letters before there were envelopes? And how do you read a letter you don’t want to unfold? How putting stuff in boxes changed the world economy, and why container ships will keep getting bigger, and bigger and their ownership less and less clear (and for more on the Great Bitter Lake Association, Roman Mars and Co have a whole podcast and story on it).

How does the brain avoid getting confused between memories and current stimuli (doesn’t explain why someone thought this was even a problem in the first place).

FINALLY

They Have Already Landed, part 43997: flying pyramids buzz US naval vessels. And I’ve been thinking a lot about greyhounds lately. So, apropos of nothing, here’s a greyhound doing snow zoomies. Check out the three-part snow-shake.