Professor Hydrogen
Bragi Jurriaan Kamp | June 2007 issue Everyone used to laugh whenever he started talking about hydrogen power. But Icelander Bragi Árnason was unfazed, and continued his research into how his country could end its dependency on imported fossil fuels. To him, it made perfect sense. Iceland has Read More...
Native intelligence
Anthropologist Jeremy Narby is bringing together indigenous knowledge and Western science to inform the search for a sustainable future. Kim Ridley | May 2007 issue If you think a slime mould is just a stupid glob of protoplasm, think again. Japanese researchers have discovered that this Read More...
The power of many
From the alternative global movement to the Wikipedians, the key word today is "self-organization": not doing what you're told to do, but contributing what you can and wish to for the greater good. Marco Visscher describes the emergence of the participatory culture. Marco Visscher | May 2007 Read More...
Give non-violence a chance
Achieving your aims without warfare is a dangerous idea that terrifies the established order. Mark Kurlansky | April 2007 issue Lesson No. 1 on the subject of non-violence is that there is no definitive word for it. The concept has been praised by all major religions, yet while every language has a Read More...
Real men play nice
What the world can learn from Nordic countries. Marco Visscher| March 2007 issue In the 1960s when Stuart Schlegel went to live among the Teduray, a tribe that made its home in the Philippine rainforest, the American missionary found a society he called "radically egalitarian." Men and women, Read More...
Beyond Organic
The next ecological and social revolution is being plotted right now in the rainforests of South America Jay Walljasper| March 2007 issue Our small boat bobs along the unimaginably wide Amazon River, then heads up a fast-flowing tributary the colour of tea with cream, and finally turns onto a Read More...
Column Tijn Touber
Finding wholeness at 30,000 feet Tijn Touber| March 2007 issue A friend who was juggling a myriad of personal problems had to take a long overseas flight for business. Rigid with tension, she was desperate for a couple of hours’ sleep but was wedged into a middle seat between two large men. She Read More...
Paradise reclaimed
Seoul, South Korea, puts a new spin on progress by bulldozing a highway to build a park. John Vidal| March 2007 issue A year ago, several million people headed to a spot in the centre of Seoul, the capital of South Korea, to celebrate the opening of a new park. This was obviously not your ordinary Read More...
Pulling themselves up by their keyboards
By bringing computers into slums, an Indian physicist shows that illiterate children can educate themselves - and help their country progress. Lex Veldhoen | Jan/Feb 2007 issue The alleys are narrow in Madangir, a slum on the edge of New Delhi. Rickety huts crammed together house emigrants from Read More...
Is algae the new oil?
An alternative energy is ready to bloom Craig Cox | December 2006 issue Marlborough is a picturesque coastal city on New Zealand’s South Island known for wineries and whale-watching. But oddly enough it’s the town’s sewage ponds that are getting the most attention these days, as a company Read More...