Understanding where your food comes from, and how what you consume affects others, is as vital as it is fascinating. Choose organic, eat less meat, and support your local farmers to reduce food miles. 

ktsait:

how the global food market starves the poor

Ankle Injuries - Fujiya & Miyagi. Just how awesome is this animation made out of coloured dice?

I’ve always been intrigued by how scent is so closely linked to memory. A random whiff in the air can suddenly bring to mind the freshly laundered clothes of someone you loved. Ikea wouldn’t be Ikea without its new furniture smells. Sniffing freshly baked bread can take me back to childhood days visiting the neighbourhood bakery with my mum. It’s true, nothing triggers nostalgia and memory quite like our nose.

Which is why I enjoyed Scents and Sensibilities: The Invisible Language of Smell, one of the talks at the World Science Festival 2011. It’s funny, fascinating, and covers many different facets of our undervalued olfactory organ. I only wish there was an accessible, reliable way to bottle up the smells I want to remember.

Symmetry, by Everynone. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…” - Eccl. 3:1

While some choose the simpler route of a Facebook event invite, a certain Kelli Anderson’s lo-fi brilliance makes this wedding invite a standout.

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Kelli Anderson - Paper Record Player

This is great! Early detection of diseases thanks to a marriage of design thinking and the sciences.

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FastCo Design - What If You Could Gauge Your Health with Color-Coded Poo?

As featured on Brain Pickings, synesthesia is a rare neurological condition where stimulation in one sensory pathway triggers an experience in another. For example, some synesthetics are able to “hear” colour or “see” music. 

In Giant Steps, synesthetic Michal Levy gives us an idea of how she sees this piece of music by John Coltrane. Notice how it builds up, then disintegrates into little squares (notes) near the end.

This plays like dark poetry that disturbs as much as it engrosses.

theatlantic:

In 2003, writer Shelley Jackson asked 2,000 volunteers to get a single word tattooed on their bodies. Here’s the story told in tattoos and on YouTube.

The government of Malaysia owns and controls its mainstream media, but the online space belongs to the opposition, who use it to expose corruption, educate Malaysians on their rights, debunk myths and dispel fear. Of course there’s often propaganda involved, but time (and a comments section) tests the hearts and mettle of these savvier politicians/activists, and RPK has been time-tested to want Malaysians to want real change.

Art is a glue that brings people together. Check out the project here: http://www.insideoutproject.net/

Youth Group with their definitive cover of Forever Young. What an emotional ride this is. All you see are skateboarders having fun, trying out tricks, not afraid of making mistakes, braving the fall, rolling with the punches. The lead sings it like it is—unadorned, without the weight of a hefty mortgage or a family to care for. Note to self: I am as young as I dare to be.