It wasn’t that long ago that Neanderthals were depicted as hairy, dumb, slouching, animal brutes. But a raft of striking new discoveries and startling new depictions are proving that our Stone Age cousins may have been just as human as we are. Since the first thick-browed skull was discovered in Germany’s Neander valley in 1856, homo sapiens have liked to imagine our Neanderthal cousins as little more than monsters. This image was cemented in the early 20th century with the discovery and reconstruction of a 60,000 year-old Neanderthal skeleton in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France. Nicknamed “The ..read more

In a world full of lies, lies, lies, how far would you go to find the truth? In 1900 an eclectic group of artists, thinkers and revolutionaries decided Southern Switzerland was far enough. They bought a hilltop overlooking Lake Maggiore, rejected meat, embraced the flesh, and established a wellness centre you can still visit today. Just around the corner from Val Verzasca, where James Bond once took a flying leap and you can discover fresh water snorkelling today, lies the town of Ascona, where German pianist Ida Hofman and Belgian industrialist Henri Oedenkoen signed a deal to purchase farmla ..read more

It’s 1935. The US Army Air Corp is testing out the Model 299 prototype of a long-range Boeing bomber. Manned by an experienced crew, the four-engine plane thunders into the sky above Wright Field, Ohio. But as it climbs, instead of levelling off, the plane’s nose keeps pointing up, and up, and up – and there’s nothing the pilot can do to get it down. Suddenly, at roughly 100 metres of altitude, all four engines stall. The plane pitches forward and seconds later slams into the ground, bursting into flames. The problem? Pilot error. At that time, the Model 299 prototype was a marvel of complexit ..read more

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Deciding what to eat for dinner can – should – be as simple as those three rules. Unfortunately, as American journalist and best-selling author Michael Pollan has been pointing out in nearly two decades of food writing, the modern world has made deciding what to eat much, much more complicated. As Pollan describes in his book In Defense of Food, the 19th century served up a revolutionary new way of looking at food. For the first time in history, we started seeing, understanding, comparing and evaluating food in terms of nutrients. First, macronutrients: p ..read more

Once upon a time, they said books would ruin your eyesight. Then TV. Then computers and video games. Then tablets. Now phones. They were totally wrong. And totally right. If you haven’t seen the news, we’re in the midst of a global myopia epidemic. Also known as shortsightedness or nearsightedness, myopia is an elongation of the eyeballs that causes distant objects to look blurry. This blurriness can be compensated for by glasses or contact lenses, although they don’t correct the underlying physical deformation of the eyeball. Myopia takes root during childhood, when the eyeballs are still for ..read more

Humans are maximalists. We instinctively want more. Having evolved amidst millions of years of resource scarcity, we’re hard-wired to scrounge, collect, and amass all things we need – and all the things we might need, just in case. While we’ve successfully turned the tables on scarcity in much of the modern world, evolution hasn’t had time to catch up. We don’t have an off switch for our pack-rat instincts. Instead, our cupboards, closets, and garages and pay-per-month storage facilities are overflowing to the point that it has entered the catalogues of our modern psychological disorders. As t ..read more

You’re standing at the summit of Mt. Blanc. Your legs are trembling in the snow, your cheeks and nose are red, and there are tears in your eyes. You stare out in wonder at the sky. “It’s so blue!” your companion shouts in delight. And it is. A deep, deep blue you’ve never seen before – almost black. Blue number 1, on the cyanometer you’ve invented. You’re the first person ever to have scientifically measured the blueness of the sky. In 1787, after more than a decade of trying, Horace Bénédict de Saussure got to the top of Mt. Blanc. He wasn’t the first – two local Chamonix men beat him to the ..read more

In the present day, pride in penmanship is becoming a thing of the past. Still, if you receive something written in calligraphy, you can be absolutely sure it’s important. But where does this knowledge come from? And why does the written word merit its own museum? Calligraphy sits at the intersection of art and writing. It’s the transcription of language in its most aesthetic form. Once upon a time, people put their pens to paper, or rather quills or brushes to parchment, with a mind to the harmony that exists there, as well as what they wanted to say. There was an intentional balance between ..read more

First it might be your knees. Then your eyesight. But as you age, the next thing to go is your memory. We tend to forget. Not just names and faces, but sometimes the important things in life – the lessons we first learned when we were children. As we grow up, we learn the world is complex. It’s full of intractable problems, like war, climate change, and global pandemics. And we often have lofty but challenging societal goals, like providing comprehensive public transport, responsive health care, and a fair tax system. None of these have a single, straightforward solution. And what’s worse, we ..read more

Pens are complex technologies that have been evolving since the days of the quill and ink pot. But sometimes evolution can trend toward simplicity, as it has with our new DS11. New DS11 is a push ballpoint pen made from only two parts. The mechanism requires no separate spring or components, but is organically a part of the casing – a clever, closed system. And, more good news: simple is still sustainable. DS11 is made with 100% recycled ABS in black and white, and 50% in all other colours. The 10 standard colours are lemon, red, orange, clover green, yellow green, cyan blue, navy blue, new ..read more