How psychologists study the flow state
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found flow by interviewing climbers, dancers and writers. Fifty years on, labs still struggle to catch it.
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Store the Picasso, defer the tax: how art freeports work
A freeport lets goods sit in customs limbo, untaxed until they leave. How Geneva, Luxembourg and Singapore turned that rule into vaults for art and gold.
England's 1974 reform scrapped councils, not its old counties
The Local Government Act 1972 abolished England's old councils and named new areas counties. Yorkshire and Cumberland live on as historic counties.
Deutsche Welle: Germany's broadcaster for audiences abroad
Deutsche Welle broadcasts Germany to the world, not to Germans. That job has led it to hire a British transmitter firm and cost it its Moscow bureau.
A 1977 Black feminist statement coined 'identity politics'
The 1977 Combahee River Collective Statement called oppression interlocking. A co-author says it coined 'identity politics'. It inspired intersectionality.
California water budgets: a pinhole disc for the overspenders
In California's drought, the Las Virgenes Water District gave each home a water budget. Ignore five warnings and a pinhole disc cuts the supply to a trickle.
The Maya built a year into Mexico's El Castillo pyramid
El Castillo at Chichén Itzá in Mexico has 91 steps on each side plus a top platform, making 365, one for each day of the solar year.
Belgium's loot box ban: strict on paper, unenforced
In 2018 Belgium ruled loot boxes in FIFA 18, Overwatch and CS:GO were illegal gambling. Its regulator has struggled to enforce that, but firms still comply.
A Pentagon-funded radar became Puerto Rico's Arecibo telescope
The US military funded Arecibo in Puerto Rico to study the ionosphere and perhaps track missiles. Astronomers turned it into a famous radio telescope.
Gaia, parked at L2, still fired thrusters to stay put
At a Lagrange point the pulls of two bodies balance, so a probe stays near it on little fuel. Gaia's controllers still planned a correcting burn every month.
Clownfish keep their anemones breathing at night
The anemone shields the fish with stinging cells. In return the fish cleans, feeds and, a 2013 study found, fans oxygen through its host after dark.
Red notices: Interpol's nearest thing to a global warrant
Interpol runs no manhunts of its own. It links police across 196 countries, and the Guardian found some regimes using that channel against critics.
A lung drug passed its main test and missed two others
NICE's appraisal of nintedanib shows how a trial proves a drug works: one pre-set outcome, a null hypothesis, and a p-value that either clears the bar or not.
The gap in Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem
Wiles worked in secret for seven years, then a reviewer found a flaw. Quanta and Nautilus trace how he got round a 350-year-old problem, and nearly lost it.
Costa Rica's forests returned once cattle stopped paying
Forest fell to 41% of Costa Rica by 1986 and now covers over half. WRI credits the end of ranching subsidies and payments to landowners who kept trees.
Direct air capture: a fan, a filter and a lot of heat
A plant blows air past a material that grabs carbon dioxide, then heats it to get the gas back out. NIST and the BBC explain both main designs.
A stage costume is built to come off in seconds
Broadway dressers snap layered costumes shut seam by seam, and club performers mend and wash theirs for years. Playbill and the Guardian went backstage.
Carbon capture buries a sliver of the CO2 the world emits
Carbon capture and storage takes about 45 million tonnes of CO2 a year, the BBC reports, against emissions above 40 billion. Britain regulates the pipes.
Microplastics in bottled water: more particles, unclear harm
A review of 21 studies found more plastic in bottled water than tap, yet the World Health Organization says the health evidence still has gaps.
How a botched press briefing opened the Berlin Wall in 1989
The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989. The BBC and National Geographic trace how a botched press briefing turned months of protest into an open border.
What happens underground when a well is fracked
Fracking pumps water, sand and chemicals into tight rock until it splits, then lets the sand prop the cracks open so oil and gas can flow back up the well.
The NPT let five countries keep the bomb, on a promise
The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty recognised five nuclear-weapon states and asked everyone else to go without. The deal rested on a promise to disarm.
One yellow fever jab now covers a traveller for life
Many countries in Africa and South America want proof of yellow fever vaccination at the border. Since 2016 the certificate has stayed valid for life.
Six countries pooled coal and steel, and built the EU's machinery
The European Coal and Steel Community put French and German heavy industry under one authority in 1952. Its commission, court and assembly became the EU's.