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Is the BBC dumbing down?

Natural History on the BBC has taken a drastic departure from its unabashedly nerdy roots. And what about that episode on climate change that was canned?

25 November 2011

Toronto Standard

The Reel McCoy

In an age when our lives are steeped in pixels, photographs created with traditional techniques can’t help but be striking.

23 November 2011

Toronto Standard

Returning to Leslieville

The scale of the changes seen in the neighbourhood can be overwhelming, especially for someone who grew up there and returns intermittently from abroad. Assessing Leslieville then and now.

21 October 2011

Toronto Standard

Orangutan > Me

I expected to smell better than two boys who had not washed for 40 days. I did not expect to be deemed less attractive than an orangutan.

17 August 2011

Guerilla Science

English Lessons

Welcome to the strange experience of the English music festival, a five-day endurance test of rain, music, chemicals and costumes.

28 July 2011

Toronto Standard

Bacterial Culture

On the outside: a sleek and smooth white briefcase, sporting a bright silver handle, cheerfully labeled “E. chromi” in a cursive font, each letter a different colour of the rainbow. On the inside: an assortment of stool samples, each also brightly spotted in a different colour of the rainbow, cushioned neatly into white pockets for easy examination.

25 April 2011

Toronto Standard

In deep water

Protest, anger and controversy at the BP Annual General Meeting: "This is the last chance to hold the company accountable."

15 April 2011

New Internationalist

Hygiene Hypothesis: London’s Feast of Filth

“Please put your genitals on the table.” Epidemiologist and author Elizabeth Pisani was speaking to a crowd of 60 diners sitting beneath the gilded iron arches of a Victorian sewage pumping station. “No, you cannot trade your genitals with your neighbour — you have to take the genitals you are given.”

6 April 2011

Toronto Standard

‘Safe for use’ – but not in Canada

Last week a delegation from the Asian Ban Asbestos Network, including cancer victims and widows, travelled from their homes in Indonesia, India and elsewhere to ask the Quebec government not to revive a dying industry that has brought cancer and death to millions of people around the world.

13 December 2010

New Internationalist

Peasants cool the planet

"A lot of NGOs who talk about climate change are only thinking about polar bears and trees – they are not familiar with how people’s lives are impacted. This is something that is, unfortunately, often missing from the broader environmental movement."

8 December 2010

New Internationalist

Surgery of the Soul

Over the eyeball, under the eyelid, and straight on till morning: Lobotomy techniques, past and present, for the alleviation of psychosis, delusions, and emotional distress.

30 November 2010

Guerilla Science

Thrown away

One week it’s a farmer’s field, and the next it’s a teeming mass of people, tents, stages, toilets, kitchens and bars. British music festivals are some of the biggest parties on the planet, so naturally they can leave a bit of a mess behind. Zoe Cormier looks at the clean up.

1 November 2010

Access All Areas

A lethal injection

The Quebec government in Canada has given a life-saving injection to a bankrupt mine so it may continue producing one of the most dangerous and carcinogenic substances ever known.

13 September 2010

New Internationalist