Japan's Modern Tea Culture

Although the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony plays a less important part in Japanese society today, green tea is still the country’s preferred beverage, and teas such as like gyokuro (玉露), sencha (煎茶), genmaicha (玄米茶), houjicha (ほうじ茶), and matcha (抹茶) are consumed in large quantities by people of all ages.
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Where airplanes go to die: Walking around a 747 graveyard

I was close enough to stick my hand inside the jet engine, or sit on the giant landing gear.
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Plan B - She Said

From the album 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks' (2010)
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Bad Air: Pollution, Sin, and Science Fiction in William Delisle Hay’s "The Doom of the Great City" (1880)

Deadly fogs, moralistic diatribes, debunked medical theory - Brett Beasley explores a piece of Victorian science fiction considered to be the first modern tale of urban apocalypse.
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What maps reveal about ourselves

Cartography has produced beautiful works of art – but are they as objective as we think? Alastair Sooke explores the unreliable history of map-making.
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No, GMOs didn't create India's farmer suicide problem, but...

The situation is a lot more complicated than the rhetorical war over GMOs suggests.
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3,000-year-old skeleton of dog found around Van Fortress, Turkey

The new finds offer insights into the reign of the Urartu as well as what daily life was like back then.
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Awesome Places (Arguably) Ruined By Popular Books

A rice paddy in Bali, a medieval Italian fortress, a logging town in Washington, and a few hunky-dory hiking trails have all found themselves at the center of a lot of unexpected attention. It's a matter of a few bestselling books, written by authors who likely never imagined the devotees and disciples who would want to recreate their journeys (real or imagined), step for step. Have the effects of these books diminished the magic that they tried to capture?
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Viral photos: Dad stops daughter's wedding procession in touching selfless act

LORAIN COUNTY, Ohio -- In the photographer's own words: "Grab tissues!"
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Top Banana: When Fruit Was King

New Orleans has a festival for pretty much anything you can eat or drink: po'boys, Creole tomatoes, gumbo, seafood, cocktails, barbecue, a squash with dimply green skin called a mirliton. Yet there’s one glaring omission: a banana festival.
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London - centric

London is a city of immense prosperity and power. But has it succeeded at the expense of the rest of the UK?
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‘Protocells’ show ability to reproduce

Man-made balls of genetic material and membranes can pull off a decent impression of primitive cells.
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Peter Bjorn And John - Young Folks

Music video by Peter Bjorn And John performing Young Folks. From the album 'Writer's Block' (2006).
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Time-lapse video illustrates Folsom Lake's dramatic water level drop

A video posted on Facebook shows the dramatic water level drop at Folsom Lake. 
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How to explain the KGB’s amazing success identifying CIA agents in the field?

As the Cold War drew to a close with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, those at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, finally hoped to resolve many long-standing puzzles. The most important of which was how officers in the field under diplomatic and deep cover stationed across the globe were readily identified by the KGB. As a consequence, covert operations had to be aborted as local agents were pinpointed...
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Piercy & Co Design A House Behind A Nineteenth Century Stable Wall

Set within the Kew Green Conservation Area of southwest London, the four bedroom family house is formed of two sculptural weathering steel volumes inserted behind a retained nineteenth century stable wall.
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Snapshots from Space History

UCL is the only UK host of a NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF). On top of this, it has a long tradition in astronomy, geology and planetary science.
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The hidden world that moves your luggage

As we wander through duty-free on the way to our planes, a vast network is ensuring our bags travel with us.
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Russia's Lost Princesses - Beyond the portraits

Meet the real princesses behind the pretty dresses and chocolate-box image.
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Painting Stolen by Nazis Recovered in Central Ohio, Returned to Poland

“It’s not every day we get a phone call from the FBI."
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Taking to the Hills

High in the mountains of Lakeland, away from the crowds and congestion, I was surprised to find exhilarating adventure and a peaceful solitude. This is a story about the mountains themselves, their history, geology, ecology and culture — and about my experiences trying to capture their essence on film.
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What the U.S. Can Learn From Brazil's Healthcare System

On a recent afternoon in Boa Vista, a lower-middle-class neighborhood of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Noranei Oliveira Miranda waited patiently on a small couch for the local community health workers to arrive. Her aging father, Dirceu, was seated next to her, not as patiently. Trembling and non-verbal, he reared up from the couch and reached in vain for the front door. She held him down with a pillow, her strong arms forming a seatbelt across his torso.
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London tattoo convention - a visual tour

Guardian photojournalist Felix Clay visited the annual festival at Tobacco Dock, which hosted more than 300 of the world’s most prestigious tattoo artists
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Camille - Ta Douleur

From the album 'Le Fil' (2005)
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How A Little Lab In West Virginia Caught Volkswagen's Big Cheat

Volkswagen was recently brought to its knees when scientists discovered the company had installed a device in its diesel-powered cars to fool emissions tests. Its stock price tanked, its reputation has been damaged and its CEO resigned on Wednesday. So who made the discovery that sent the German car giant into a tailspin? A group of scientists at West Virginia University.
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The Woman Behind Latin America's Literary Boom

For writers coming of age during and after the Boom, invoking Carmen Balcells linked them to a special kind of origin story. Jonathan Blitzer on the literary agent, who died a week ago, in Barcelona, at eighty-five.
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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees

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SS United States: The Rusting Hulk of America's Last Great Ocean Liner

SS United States, decaying and moored at Philadelphia's Pier 84, is one of the last great ocean liners of the 20th century, facing an uncertain future.
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Stubborn goat 'arrested' after refusing to leave Saskatchewan Tim Hortons

RCMP in Warman, Sask., were forced to arrest a "stubborn" goat for refusing to leave a Tim Hortons on Sunday morning.
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The places the world forgot

Sylvain Margaine has been photographing ‘forbidden places’ since 1998. He tells Fiona Macdonald about his haunting images of prisons, churches and mental asylums.
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Pippi Longstocking's Creator: Wartime Diaries Reveal the True Astrid Lindgren

Who was the woman behind Pippi Longstocking? Freshly released wartime diaries along with a new biography reveal Astrid Lindgren, author of some of the world's most beloved children's literature, to be as radical and determined as her best-known character. By Claudia Voigt.
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10 Ways Monopoly Airlines Use 'Calculated Misery' to Make Flying an Increasingly Overpriced Nightmare

In other words, customer dissatisfaction pays off big for airlines. The industry figured out that if it only made flying a nightmarish experience for the average traveller – one in which things like food and comfort come a la carte and at additional cost – customers would pay extra for even the most basic services. Airlines get to pretend that they’re offering customer choice, and passengers are duped into believing they’re spending more for premium service.
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Blood Moon Rise

The Moon was ever-so-slightly eclipsed as it rose over the quebradas (badlands) tonight. Sunday September 27, 2015
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Last Ray Before Dark

View from Montecatini Alto,Italy,September 24, 2015
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Wind Point Lighthouse

In 1870, the Lighthouse Board petitioned Congress for $40,000 to construct a lighthouse and fog signal on Racine Point, located three-and-a-half miles north of Racine and eighteen miles south of Milwaukee.
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Solariza — Game Shows Off Great Solar Energy Potential Of Brazil

Those living in Brazil (or just admiring from afar) who have an interest in solar energy development may be interested to hear about a new online game allowing people to explore the solar potential of the South American powerhouse
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How French Artists in 1899 Envisioned Life in the Year 2000: Drawing the Future

Atomic physicist Niels Bohr is famously quoted as saying, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.” Yet despite years of getting things wrong, magazines love think pieces on where we’ll be in several decades, even centuries in time.
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No Vanity Project: At Art Center, Baryshnikov Tells Artists, 'You're The Boss'

You'd think the sign in front of dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov's arts center would have his name in lights — but actually, you can barely see it. He says what happens inside is way more important.
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Assisted Death Laws Won’t Make It Better to Die in the US

California's physician-assisted death bill has attracted a lot of debate. But nobody is talking about America's real problems with end-of-life care.
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For a Spectacular Dose of Autumn,Try the Porcupine Mountains

Thanks to the mountains' towering forest of northern hardwoods and hemlock, the annual fall foliage in the Porkies is one of the most gorgeous in the Midwest.
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Why Do Americans Love Tipping?

With new minimum wage laws taking effect in various parts of the country, some restaurants have instituted no-tipping policies. By eliminating tips and raising prices by an equivalent amount, some owners say they can spread compensation more evenly among servers and kitchen staff while eliminating bookkeeping hassles.
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Burger King to Launch Halloween Whopper with Black Buns

Burger King Steak sauce in a bun? You officially have our attention.
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Top 10 train station restaurants in Europe

The romance and frisson of rail travel are the perfect accompaniments to these superb dining experiences in the continent’s top stations
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Bossanova - Blue Bossanova

From the album 'Hey Sugar' (2006)
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Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars

From the album 'Eyes Open' (2006)
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The Roof of America by Eric Hodges

Trekking and climbing in the high mountains of Northern Peru, a rarely visited region well off the beaten track, the beauty and scale of the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Huayhuash ranges from the sublime to the overwhelming.
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Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees (HBO)

Millions of migrants seeking asylum in Europe face hostility, racism, and red tape. John Oliver does one admittedly tiny thing for one of them.
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Sucrerie de la Montagne

This shack nestled in a 120-acre forest of maple trees in Mont-Rigaud is a wonderland of sugary syrup
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The Verve - Sonnet

Music video by The Verve performing Sonnet. From the album 'Urban Hymns' (1997)
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To Progress and Back: The Rise and Fall of Erdogan's Turkey

This is Recep Tayyip Erdogan's country: a gorgeous mountain scenery on the Black Sea. On lush, green hillsides, people pick tea leaves and only interrupt their work to pray. Erdogan calls them "his people," and for them, he erected an Ottoman-style mosque atop one of the highest peaks. It stands so high above the villages that it is barely discernable from below. A death-defying path winds up the mountain and takes about 45 minutes to traverse in a car...
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