smart & curious
A list of intriguing things
- A man emerged from a 75-day meditation retreat and asked on Twitter: ‘‘Did I miss anything?”
- Austria plans to turn the house where Hitler was born into a police station—to ensure it doesn’t become a shrine.
- Researchers have uncovered a 110-million year old fossilised stomach of a dinosaur. We now know exactly what it had for dinner.
- Vogue UK has a new kind of cover model for its July issue—which will feature a community midwife, a train driver and a supermarket worker.
A list of good reads
- So why is a tiger more likely to be infected by Covid-19 than a dog? Vox explains.
- What do your favourite flowers mean? Country and Town House offer a fun guide.
- The internet dramatically changed the global environmental movement, and for good. Grist’s deep dive is an important reminder of the upside of the internet—at a time when it is easy to demonise.
- We are looking forward to checking out Megha Majumdar’s ‘A Burning’ after reading this rave review in Entertainment Weekly.
- NewsClick’s Saurabh Sharma profiles two young Hindi journalists who cycled for ten days from Delhi to Lucknow to cover the migrant crisis. This is a reminder that some of the best and bravest journalism isn’t in English.
- Voice of Fashion has a great feature on Indian handicraft artisans who are turning to creating pandemic-themed art to cope with losing their livelihoods.
Everyone’s mad at these adorable otters
Singapore’s otters have long been beloved by city residents—as long as they knew their place. But thanks to the lockdown, they’re now wandering around shopping centres and even a hospital lobby. Cue a massive backlash. But hey, they have Singapore PM Lee on their side. He declared: "Rather than being focused on protecting 'territory', we must find ways to coexist and thrive with our local flora and fauna." (Yahoo News)