WHEN COLIN KHOURY WAS SIX years old, he committed an act of civil disobedience. It was Southern California in the 1980s, and real estate companies were hungry to turn the remaining farms and wilderness bordering Los Angeles into shiny new developments. Barely out of kindergarten, Khoury was firmly against the developers. His love for landscape wasContinue reading “On the Hunt for the Wild Relatives of America’s Favorite Produce”
Category Archives: $4 Wine
How Ancient Tooth Plaque Solved the Mystery of the Banana’s Trans-Pacific Journey
A TYPICAL DAY FOR MONICA Tromp might include scraping tartar off 3,000-year-old human incisors. “It’s basically like being a dental hygienist for the dead,” says Tromp, an Affiliated Researcher at New Zealand’s University of Otago, about her work studying ancient Pacific Islanders’ diets. The hot, humid climate of places like Vanuatu, an archipelago 1,100 miles eastContinue reading “How Ancient Tooth Plaque Solved the Mystery of the Banana’s Trans-Pacific Journey”
Australian Wildfires Uncovered Hidden Sections of a Huge, Ancient Aquaculture System
IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, AN ANCIENT labyrinth of waterways snakes across a once-volcanic landscape. This is the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, a vast aquacultural system the Gunditjmara Aboriginal people, who still call this country home, began constructing 6,600 years ago. Parts of the system are still in use today. Ask locals about Budj Bim, and you’ll invariablyContinue reading “Australian Wildfires Uncovered Hidden Sections of a Huge, Ancient Aquaculture System”
How Aboriginal Hunting and ‘Cool Burns’ Prevent Australian Wildfires
THERE IS A SCAR ACROSS Australia’s Western Desert. For millennia—no one is sure how many, though evidence of Aboriginal people’s presence in Australia stretches back 50,000 years—the Martu people used fire to hunt in the scraggly bush. In a practice called cultural burning, they set low blazes patient enough for small animals such as bettongs and wallabiesContinue reading “How Aboriginal Hunting and ‘Cool Burns’ Prevent Australian Wildfires”
Sold: Charles Dickens’ Liquor Log
ON JUNE 6, 1870, CHARLES Dickens strolled into the cellar of his country house, Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, and surveyed his liquor stores. The day before, wine merchants at Joseph Ellis & Sons had dropped off a cask of good sherry. If Dickens wanted whiskey, he could dig into stone jars of it, including someContinue reading “Sold: Charles Dickens’ Liquor Log”
Lesbian bars are disappearing. We spent a night at one that’s still standing.
Walking into Henrietta Hudson feels like taking off a heavy backpack. It’s a humid June night in New York’s Greenwich Village, and inside the reggaeton-pulsing bar, a sparse crowd drinks beer and laughs. My shoulders instantly relax, and not just because I’ve escaped a spring downpour. Read more at The Washington Posts’s The Lily. Photo:Continue reading “Lesbian bars are disappearing. We spent a night at one that’s still standing.”
The Struggling Vineyards That Helped Inspire Karl Marx’s Communism
A SPECTRE IS HAUNTING TRIER, Germany—the spectre of Karl Marx. Today, tourists to the small Rhineland city visit the house where Marx was born and gaze at the armchair he died in. They take selfies in front of a larger-than-life Marx statue, gifted to the city in 2018 by the Chinese government. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Photo:Continue reading “The Struggling Vineyards That Helped Inspire Karl Marx’s Communism”
For Sale: 300-Year-Old “Shipwreck Wine” Rescued from the Bottom of the Sea
IN 2010, A TEAM OF underwater salvagers toasted a deep-sea discovery with a rare vintage. Their discovery? The very wine they were about to drink: 350-year-old bottles they had fished out of a decrepit shipwreck off the coast of Hamburg, Germany. Read more at Atlas Obscura. Photo: Mark Mornati, Unsplash.
Harsher Punishments Won’t Keep Kids Safe from Sexual Abuse: The Death Penalty in India
When rape makes the headlines in India, talk of hanging begins. Commentators blare from news screens; politicians pledge death. These stories of brutal crime and brutal punishment, all in the name of protecting women and girls, tell us something important about contemporary Indian responses to rape. They also tell us about a fundamental flaw inContinue reading “Harsher Punishments Won’t Keep Kids Safe from Sexual Abuse: The Death Penalty in India”
10 Inspiring Self-Love Quotes from LGBTQ Icons
When trans women of color led the way in the Stonewall Riots of 1969, Pride was born. It was a movement against police harassment and to claim space for a marginalized community. By fighting back, members of New York City’s queer community signaled they would not be pushed into the shadows anymore. The Stonewall Riots are part of aContinue reading “10 Inspiring Self-Love Quotes from LGBTQ Icons”
