Hand dryers v paper towels: the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands. For a century, the humble paper towel has dominated public toilets. But a new generation of hand dryers has sparked a war for loo supremacy, Samanth Subramanian in The Guardian.
The rise of the “getting real” post on Instagram, writes Carrie Battan in The New Yorker.
From the piece: "Although Instagram has been well documented as one of the most demoralizing places on the Internet, it’s easier to post about insecurity and isolation as if they flowed solely from external factors, rather than from the powerful, consuming platform by which many of these people make their livelihood."
Trump got his wall, after all: A small, dedicated crew of hardliners has put up bureaucratic barriers that are far harder to overcome than any hunk of concrete on the southern border, Rachel Morris on Huffpost Highline.
Marooned in Malkangiri: Prafulla Das writes about the 30,000 tribal people who have lived in isolation for nearly five decades cut off by a dam and persecuted as Maoist sympathisers, in The Hindu.
Not just Jawaharlal Nehru University: How India’s public universities becoming costlier hurts the most vulnerable, Aranya Shankar, Dipti Nagpaul, Ankita Dwivedi Johri write in The Indian Express.
A brief history of the crock pot: Eighty years after it was patented, the Crock Pot remains a comforting presence in kitchens across the world, writes Michelle Delgado in Smithsonianmag.
The photographer who captured the other swinging sixties: James Barnor shot Ghana’s independence on a cheap camera, then moved to London to document its emergent black counterculture. Now, at the age of 90, he is finally being recognised, writes Alexandra Genova in The Guardian.
Are ‘dog years’ for real? An explanation of calculating canine age, writes Christian Yates in The Conversation.
From the piece:
"The underlying assumption is that each calendar year a dog lives though is equivalent to seven human years at any stage of a dog’s life. But new research suggests that things aren’t so simple. And if we look at some basic developmental milestones, it’s clear why."
The 'Scorsese Versus Superheroes' debate misses the point: Martin Scorsese’s recent comments bashing superhero movies provoked a torrent of outrage. But the real issue isn’t Marvel movies — it’s a funding model that prioritizes easy blockbusters over riskier, daring films, writes Eileen Jones in Jacobinmag.
On cricket commentary expertise: Fluency and the experience of watching decades of cricket aren’t enough any more, argues Mukul Kesavan in his piece in The Telegraph
