Earth-friendly certifications and standards abound for products like coffee, chocolate and palm oil. But do the programs work? https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/sustainability/2019/blizzard-sustainability-labels

Scenes from award-winning literature crafted with hand-cut paper https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/04/scenes-from-literature-zim-zou/

How to pitch an editor

I wrote a long online essay and realized it might be useful to freelancers in general.

https://medium.com/@estherschindler/how-to-pitch-an-editor-f2a2f7e34006

A half century later, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is still shaping our future. With no help from CGI, the movie predicted private space travel, artificial intelligence and half of Apple’s product line. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/public-radio-international/studio-360-from-pri-and-wnyc-35006/e/60596092

The trick to losing a heavy accent and imitating native English speakers may lie in re-training the brain to hear new frequencies. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190506-this-technology-could-help-you-lose-your-accent

"What if women no longer tried to fit a standard that was never meant for them and instead, we focused on redefining what likability might look like: not someone you want to get a beer with, but, say, someone you can trust to do the work?" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/04/opinion/sunday/likeable-elizabeth-warren-2020.html

"The Pentagon could be responsible for 5,000 publicly accessible websites. Or it could be less than half that. Nobody appears to know for sure." https://www.stripes.com/news/want-to-know-how-many-websites-the-pentagon-runs-so-does-the-pentagon-1.580097

How do you make sure that you are interviewing the right people to find out what makes them happy? I asked experienced experts to help compile practical guidelines for stakeholder management. https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/how-to-identify-the-right-it-project-stakeholders-1905.html

Ancient Egypt’s city of divine cats uncovered after long search https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/05-06/bubastis-egyptian-sacred-city-of-cats/

Apollo rocks showed how the moon was made. Now they’re about to solve more mysteries. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/apollo-rocks-showed-how-the-moon-was-made-and-now-theyre-about-to-solve-more-mysteries/2019/05/12/e3919a16-6de5-11e9-8f44-e8d8bb1df986_story.html

I'm interviewing an expert on the #MeToo movement. (Her book on the subject is coming out next month.) What would you ask her?

Vader vs. Kenobi Reimagined https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to2SMng4u1k

Adam Savage on the power of lists. https://www.wired.com/story/adam-savage-lists-more-lists-power-checkboxes/

The SETI screensaver shows us what the internet could’ve been.
We ran SETI@home for _years_.
https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2019/04/28/the-seti-screensaver-shows-us-what-the-internet-couldve-been

How America’s obsession with long hours has widened the gender gap.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/upshot/women-long-hours-greedy-professions.html

Kōlam is a centuries-long tradition in which artists in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu draw beautiful, ritualistic designs that utilize mathematics, mythology, and rice. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/indian-rice-art-kolam

Raise your hand if you remember the smell of a ditto machine? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccYLLzpeVnU

The Petersen Automotive Museum has opened a new exhibition focusing on sci-fi vehicles from the big and small screen. From Robocop to both Blade Runners, three generations of Batman movies to Minority Report and Mad Max. https://newatlas.com/petersen-hollywood-dream-machines/59546/

Oldest tree in eastern North America found in a swamp: it’s 2,624 years old https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/oldest-tree-north-america-06052019/

Looking for datasets? Use the Google Dataset Search tool: https://toolbox.google.com/datasetsearch