VOX
The hidden history of “Hand Talk”
- Title
- The hidden history of “Hand Talk”
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- The hidden history of an ancient language.
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Centuries before we had American Sign Language, Native sign languages, broadly known as “Hand Talk,” were thriving across North America. Hand Talk would be influential in the formation of American Sign Language. But it has largely been written out of history.
One of these Hand Talk variations, Plains Indian Sign Language, was used so widely across the Great Plains that it became a lingua franca — a universal language used by both deaf and hearing people to communicate among tribes that didn’t share a common spoken language. At one point, tens of thousands of indigenous people used Plains Indian Sign Language, or PISL, for everything from trade to hunting, conflict, storytelling, and rituals.
But by the late 1800s, the federal government had implemented a policy that would change the course...
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- The world's biggest wave, explained
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- And how it's transformed a Portuguese town.
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Nazaré, Portugal was for centuries just a small fishing village known for its fishermen and dangerous seas. Then one day in 2011, a pro-surfer named Garrett McNamara strapped on a surf board and rode a 78 foot wave right off its coast. It was a new world-record for big wave surfing and the moment that changed Nazaré forever. Now, Nazaré is the capital of Big Wave surfing. The secret to Nazaré’s giant waves lies under the surface, where a huge underwater canyon funnels swells right up to its cliffs, then launches that energy straight up, sometimes 60, 70, or 80 feet. Many surfers visit in the hopes of catching a 100-foot wave.
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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cu...
- Title
- Who made these circles in the Sahara?
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Someone left these marks in the sand. We had to find out who.
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Deep in the Sahara, far from any towns, roads, or other signs of life, is a row of markings in the sand. There are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line in central Algeria, each consisting of a central point surrounded by a circle of 12 nodes, like numbers on a clock. And when we started making this video, no one seemed to know what they were.
We first saw the circles back in September 2021, after finding a Reddit post on r/WhatIsThis with coordinates asking what the circles could be. With just two upvotes and two commenters, it wasn’t exactly a lively discussion. But seeing the circles themselves on Google Earth was fascinating: They were eerily perfect in their shape and regularity, but so deeply isolated in the desert. We were hooked on finding an answer.
So ...
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- Why Frank Lloyd Wright’s windows look like this
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Natural light was an obsession — and he worked hard to let it in.
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes included many distinctive features, from the brick and cedar materials to the open floor plan. But one of the most distinctive features might be the windows — which reflected his broader philosophy of natural light.
As the above video shows, Wright considered natural light an important part of the house that deserved highlighting, both in the windows used and in the way the rest of the house showcased that light. The Pope-Leighey house in Alexandria, Virginia, is a particularly good showcase of the way these windows made natural light an integral part of the home.
Further Reading:
Steven M. Reiss’s book about the Pope-Leighey House is an invaluable resource for learning about the house, but it also gives a peek into the developme...
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- How “Z” became Putin’s new propaganda meme
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- The letter now signifies loyalty to the Russian president.
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Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak caused controversy in March 2022 when he accepted a bronze medal at a World Cup event, all while sporting a taped-on letter “Z” on his uniform. The Z symbol had already been appearing all over Russia, as a sign of support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and loyalty to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The letter popped up on merchandise, in highly organized flash mobs that often involved children, at pro-war rallies, and in internet memes.
The symbol was originally spotted on Russian tanks and trucks building up at Ukraine’s border in late February, along with other letters like V and O. Questions about what the symbols meant began circulating online, and once the invasion began on February 24, most analysts agreed the markings were likely for tactical purposes...
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- The banned weapon Russia (and the US) won’t give up
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Why war crimes investigators are looking for cluster bombs in Ukraine.
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In Ukraine, human rights investigators like Amnesty International and Bellingcat have been tracking Russian attacks to aid in a potential war crimes investigation. One thing they’re paying special attention to is cluster bombs. Cluster bombs were first used in World War II; they scatter numerous smaller bombs over a wide area — often killing civilians. It’s this indiscriminate nature that often makes their use a war crime.
Our modern conception of war crimes was created by a series of treaties spanning decades. In 1977, one of those treaties banned what’s known as “indiscriminate attacks.” That means militaries are legally prohibited from attacking an area imprecisely, in a way that can harm civilians.
Russia is not alone in using these weapons: In conflicts si...
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- What Russia's war means for the International Space Station
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Can the US and Russia still collaborate in space?
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The International Space Station has been orbiting above us for the last 20 years. It’s been home to astronauts from more than a dozen different countries — but mostly Americans and Russians. The two former “Space Race” countries control the main parts of the station. The science done there has required close collaboration and so it’s been largely insulated from politics on Earth.
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may change that. The two countries have agreed to cooperate through 2024… but after that, the future of the space station is uncertain.
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Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really drivin...
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- How Ukrainians are saving art during the war
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- And the long history of why protecting physical culture matters.
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Despite the fact that it’s a war crime to target cultural heritage, cultural sites are often treated as a second front: looted, damaged, or destroyed as a way for an aggressor to assert power, demoralize an enemy, and control — or even erase — a cultural narrative.
From the very beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, identity has been at the center of Putin’s agenda. And as cultural sites all over the country sustain damage, it is becoming increasingly clear that erasing the cultural and historical markers of Ukraine are a key facet of Russia’s plan.
Ukraine is home to a vast array of visual and material culture — museums, monuments, archives, and architecture — all of which is at grave risk of destruction, both collateral and intentional.
We...
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- Why everyone has this chair
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- This two-legged chair has been famous for almost 100 years.
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If your internet overlaps even a little bit with mine, you’ve seen a Cesca (also known as a B32). The cantilevered cane and chrome chair is all over the place: in trendy homes, on movies and tv sets, even tattooed on people's bodies. But Instagram’s favorite chair is not exactly new.
It was designed nearly 100 years ago by an architect named Marcel Breuer, while he was a student at the Bauhaus, the famed German art school. This somewhat unassuming two-legged chair is the realization of a manifestos-worth of utopian ideals about design and functionality. So maybe it’s no surprise it has somehow remained in fashion for decades: It’s a design icon. And just a really, really nice looking chair.
To learn more about Marcel Breuer, “Marcel Breuer: Furniture and Interiors” by Ch...
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- How China uses fruit to punish Taiwan
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- It's not just about fruit.
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In September 2021, China banned the import of sugar apples, or atemoya, from Taiwan, claiming they were bringing in pests. Critics say pests are an excuse, and China is weaponizing trade with Taiwan. And this isn’t the first time. In February of 2021, China banned the import of Taiwanese pineapples, causing a backlog and threatening farmers' livelihoods across the country.
The current situation is tied to a complex history that goes back to the Chinese civil war, and to recent tensions that go back to 2016, when Taiwan elected a new president. Since then, Chinese military incursions into Taiwan’s air space have been on the rise, and the relation between the two has kept deteriorating. Fruit is the latest expression of this.
To understand how this atemoya ban impacts farmers in Taiwan, and how it all ties toget...
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- Why people thought steel houses were a good idea
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- It was supposed to be the future of housing. What went wrong?
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Why aren’t homes made of steel? In the late 1940s, one company posed that question. Lustron was a prefabricated home that was supposed to be the future of housing. So why did it fail?
For just a few years — 1947 to 1950 — the Columbus, Ohio-based Lustron represented the future of housing. Using a steel frame and porcelain enamel-covered steel panels, Lustron made homes in a factory and shipped them around the country.
Vox’s Phil Edwards visited a Lustron home just outside Dayton, Ohio, to experience the unusual features, like magnetic walls, for himself. This home’s quirks weren’t relegated to the materials. Through a combination of government funding sources, an attempt to reinvent the production cycle for home, and a unique distribution plan, the Lustron home helps exp...
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- How Stalin starved Ukraine
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- It was a genocide that Russia continues to cover up to this day
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In Ukraine, it’s become known as “the Holodomor,” meaning “death by starvation.” It was a genocide carried out by a dictator who wanted to keep Ukraine under his control and who would do anything to keep it covered up for decades.
In the 1930s, Soviet leaders under Joseph Stalin engineered a famine that killed millions as they sought to consolidate agricultural power. In Ukraine, they used additional force as they sought to clamp down on a burgeoning Ukrainian national identity. There, at least 4 million died. As hunger spread among residents, Stalin spearheaded a disinformation campaign to hide the truth from other Soviet citizens and the world. So many Ukrainians died that officials had to send people to resettle the area, setting off demographic shifts that last to this day.
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- Why there's no one inside this Spider-Man suit
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- CGI superheroes are more common than you think.
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On June 9, 1995, Batman Forever introduced audiences to what was likely the first CGI stunt double.
In a few brief shots, a digital double lept from tall buildings and swung on a grappling hook, and was used to convince viewers that Bruce Wayne was more “super” than the average man. Since then, superheroes and digidoubles have gone hand in hand. Protagonists in superhero films often wear masks or skin-tight bodysuits, which makes them perfect candidates for digital replacement; fabric is way easier to replicate digitally than skin.
Technology has only improved over the years, which means digidoubles are used for so much more than just “super” sequences. Today, digidoubles are used to give filmmakers and artists flexibility. Instead of being locked into what they’re able to shoot duri...
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- Ukrainians' escape by rail, explained
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- What it's like to flee Ukraine
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Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, more than 3 million people have been forced to flee their homes and leave the country. The vast majority are migrating west, toward the EU, and most are ending up in neighboring Poland. To escape the violence of the ground more than 2 million refugees have escaped by train, turning Ukraine’s railroad network into a vital lifeline.
We sent a crew out to Przemyśl, a small Polish town on the border with Ukraine, to speak with the people who have fled Ukraine and left everything behind. In this video, we share their stories and take a look at how the railroad is operating in a war-torn country. To help us understand what a difficult operation this is, we spoke to the CEO of Ukrainian Railways, Oleksandr Kamyshin, who is running a mobile command unit to ensure Ukraini...
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- Are we done with face masks?
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Mandates around the globe are ending, but don’t throw out your masks yet.
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Face masks were one of our earliest interventions to slow the spread of Covid-19. For two years we’ve largely relied on local governments and businesses to tell us when and where to wear them, but now those mandates are being lifted. So is it actually safe to take off the masks for good?
It depends on who you are and where you are. Cases are dropping in many places around the world after a harsh omicron surge, but some countries are still fighting off deadly waves of the virus. Many public health experts are warning that the pandemic isn’t over yet, even if it feels like it is to some of us. It’s a good idea to hang onto your mask for now, but that doesn’t mean you have to wear it every day for the rest of your life, just that you should take a few key things into conside...
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- How a no-fly zone would change the war in Ukraine
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- The battle for Ukraine’s skies has enormous stakes.
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The Russian air force is huge. Ukraine’s is not. And yet, more than two weeks into Russia’s war in Ukraine, one of the biggest surprises was that Russia had not yet achieved control of the skies over Ukraine, or what’s called “air superiority.” When a military has air superiority, its planes can attack the enemy much more easily and its ground troops can advance much faster. If, or when, Russia achieves air superiority, it will have gained a major advantage in the war.
To prevent or slow down that outcome, Ukraine’s allies in the west are working to deny Russia air superiority, mostly by sending weapons that can be used to shoot down planes. But Ukraine itself has asked for a more drastic step: the declaration of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would prohibit Russian planes from the airsp...
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- Volodymyr Zelenskyy, explained in 8 moments
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Zelenskyy's rise in Ukraine, from TV star to president.
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Once known for his political comedy sketches and skits where he pretended to play the piano with his penis, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was elected as the president of Ukraine in 2019 in a landslide victory.
Although he promised that his presidency would be different from other Ukrainian leaders who “promise a lot” yet “do nothing,” President Zelenskyy would soon find himself unpopular with the public. Within two years, he had already navigated scandals like his offshore companies appearing in the Pandora Papers and struggled to fulfill his campaign pledge to end the war against Russia in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
But the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, found him extremely well-positioned to offer his skills in performance and storytelling to motivate Ukrainians, rally Europe...
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- Putin's war on Ukraine, explained
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Ukraine is under attack. Follow Vox for the latest: https://bit.ly/3Kcg9Nb
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On February 24th, Russia launched a military invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “special military operation,” but the scale of the attack shows this is a full-scale war that has already caused more than 100 casualties and forced more than half a million Ukrainians to flee their homes.
Ukraine and Russia’s conflict goes back to 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and Russian-backed separatist forces took over parts of southeastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. But to understand the full context behind the invasion, it’s important to go even farther back, to the time when Europe’s current-day divisions began, and see how that shaped Europe’s power balance today.
To understand the current conflict’s history in less than...
- Title
- How American conservatives turned against the vaccine
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- The partisan pandemic, explained in 15 charts.
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President Donald Trump presided over the fastest vaccine development process in history, leading to abundant, free vaccines in the US by the spring of 2021. Although the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines haven’t been able to stop transmission of the virus, they have been highly effective against hospitalization and death, saving hundreds of thousands of lives and rendering the majority of new Covid-19 deaths preventable.
Trump has received three doses of the vaccine. But many of his most dedicated supporters have refused, and many have died as a result. Why? Obvious culprits include misinformation on social media and Fox News and the election of Joe Biden, which placed a Democrat at the top of the US government throughout the vaccine distribution period. But if you look closely at the data, you’ll see that vaccine-he...
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- Why the US doesn’t have universal child care (anymore)
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Other rich countries have family policies the US doesn’t.
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Every other high-income country in the world has a paid maternity leave policy. Most have a paternity leave policy, too. And usually some form of universal or subsidized child care for all families. The United States has… none of these policies.
It did have federally-funded child care once. And Congress even passed a universal child care policy in the 70s. But today, the US is stuck on a policy path of welfare and tax credits. So… why hasn’t the US been able to establish these common family policies?
The Promise of Preschool is a great dive into the history of child care policy in the US if you want to read more: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395075.001.0001/acprof-9780195395075
And Anna Danziger Halperin’s researc...
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- In defense of the "gentrification building"
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- How new buildings can actually fight displacement
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When many people look at new housing construction, they don’t just see boxy, modern, and bland architecture. They see new buildings that symbolize displacement and gentrification, or the idea that the construction comes at the cost of pushing existing residents out and replacing them with richer, whiter residents. But as Vox policy reporter Jerusalem Demsas explains, new construction in the US can actually help fight displacement.
There’s a growing body of research on what actually happens when we add units of housing to neighborhoods: market-rate units decrease displacement and rents in neighborhoods, while adding strictly affordable units decreases gentrification. And while people may not love the aesthetics of the new architecture, these buildings all look so similar for a reason: it’s the cheap...
- Title
- The hidden reason Olympic sledding is so dangerous
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- “Sled head” is about more than just crashes.
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In recent years, the sliding community — made up of skeleton, bobsleigh, and luge athletes — has experienced a spate of brain injury-related tragedy. At first glance, the reason why seems obvious: Sleds regularly reach speeds that top 90 miles per hour, and crashes are unfortunately very common.
But there is growing research that shows it might be the act of sledding itself that is the main driver of brain injury. With every run, athletes are exposed to immense force and vibration, causing micro-concussions that can ultimately add up to major damage. Those concussions are mild enough that they can go undiagnosed. But among sledding athletes the symptoms that indicate a micro-concussion — headaches, dizziness, etc. — are so common they have a special nickname, “sled head.”
There’s a...
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- The Italy-Switzerland border is melting
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- How a ski lodge became trapped in a border dispute.
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Italy’s land border cuts through the highest altitudes of the Alps — crossing snowfields, mountain peaks, and massive glaciers. For centuries, the watershed line (which marks the divide where water flows either north or south off of the mountains) served as a natural boundary between Italy and its European neighbors. But beginning in the 1980s, geographic surveyors noticed something: The glaciers whose peaks had long marked the watershed line were retreating … and moving Italy’s border along with them.
The only inhabited place nearby — an Italian ski lodge called the Rifugio Guide del Cervino — was caught right in the middle. Since then, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria have piloted a new kind of “mobile border” agreement, where boundary lines move with the changing landscape. Their soluti...
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- Why the Olympic monobob event is only for women
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- What the monobob does and doesn't do for gender equality
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Bobsledding (or bobsleighing) is one of the oldest Olympic sports, dating back to the very first Winter Games in 1924. Back then, women were barred from competing in nearly every event except figure skating. Of the 250 athletes that arrived for the first Winter Olympics, only 11 were women.
Times have changed, of course. The Winter Olympics in Beijing is considered the most sex-balanced to date, with female athletes making up 45 percent of the roster. But sexist regulations and outdated “science” still creep in. Who could forget the 2021 Summer Olympics, the questionable testosterone tests that barred female sprinters from competing in an event? As recently as 2008, the Winter Olympics was riddled with controversy over gender inclusion issues; female aerial skiers sued the Vancouver Organizing ...
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- The secret to winning a short track speed skating race
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Speed skating legend Apolo Ohno explains his “perfect race.”
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To the layperson, watching a short track speed skating race is awe-inspiring — but it’s difficult to decipher the strategy guiding all the jostling around the rink. Behind the superhuman turns and sprints are calculated moves to control the pack.
Apolo Ohno is probably being humble when he says that he was not the fastest skater when he entered the 500m short track finals at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. But he makes that claim to emphasize the strategy — and the little bit of luck — that played into that gold medal win. That’s why he has always referred to that event as the “perfect race” in short track speed skating.
I learned a lot from retired US Olympic speed skater John Coyle’s website, and I interviewed John for this story.
https://joh...
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- Why ski jumpers hold their skis in a V
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- It’s more about aerodynamics than aesthetics.
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If you looked at photos of ski jumpers today and ski jumpers 50 years ago, you’d notice one big difference.
In the past, jumpers held their skis tightly underneath their body in a parallel position. Keeping the body in a straight line like this was considered elegant and appealing. But more importantly, it was the position jumpers used to gather as much distance as possible. This position made athletes thin and small, which allowed them to move forward through the air quickly. However, the parallel position didn’t do much to help them fight gravity.
In the 1980s, ski jumper Jan Boklov tested out a different ski position — one that resembled a V. He noticed that the V shape allowed him to achieve longer distances.
That’s because, unlike the parallel position, the V position ...
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- The (mostly) true story of “ghost photography"
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- William Mumler claimed he could photograph ghosts ... and no one could prove he couldn’t.
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In the mid-1800s, the development of exciting new forms of communication, like photography and the telegraph, was considered miraculous. This technology also coincided with a new religious movement becoming popular in the US and Europe: spiritualism. Spiritualists believed that, through the use of a medium, contact with the dead was possible. During the bloody American Civil War (1861-1865), belief in Spiritualism grew.
It was during this time that William Mumler, an amateur photographer in Boston, claimed he could photograph ghosts. He and his wife Hannah, herself a professional photographer and Spiritualist medium, created a stir in Boston by selling these "spirit portraits," and attracted the attention of Spiritualists and skeptics alike. Professional photograph...
- Title
- How insulated glass changed architecture
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- No pane, no gain.
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Today, it’s easy to take big glass windows and doors for granted, whether they show up in commercial buildings or in our homes. But this use of glass is, at its core, a technological breakthrough that changed how we live and how our buildings work.
As Thomas Leslie explains, insulated glass shaped the look of the 20th century. Big but poorly insulated glass windows went out of fashion as electricity allowed for the production of artificial light. Builders needed a new way to install windows that let in natural light, but also controlled heat.
Insulated glass was that solution. As the above video shows, the invention of a branded glass, Thermopane, and its immediate competitors, led to the landscape we recognize today.
Further Reading:
In this paper about the development of insulated glass, Thomas Leslie ...
- Title
- Why is the Guantánamo Bay prison still open?
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Two decades of the world’s most notorious prison.
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In 2002, the US opened a prison at its naval base in Guantánamo bay, Cuba. The 9/11 attacks had occurred just months before, and the US was capturing hundreds of men in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It wanted a place to hold and question them. So the Bush administration opened Guantánamo and claimed that it lay outside of US and international law.
The detainees didn’t have to be charged with a crime to be imprisoned and the US could hold them as long as they’d like. By 2003, there were nearly 700 men imprisoned in Guantánamo, but there was backlash from around the world. When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he pledged to close Guantánamo.
But politics quickly got in the way. He was able to decrease the population but faced legal challenges. Ultimately, no president has been able to c...
- Title
- How to find a planet you can’t see
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Tiny wobbles and faint twinkles that have led astronomers to nearly 5,000 new worlds.
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For a tour of some of the odd exoplanets scientists have found, watch part one, here: https://youtu.be/lrAFaONyLtU
Pluto was discovered in January of 1930, a tiny speck on a photographic plate (https://www.planetary.org/space-images/the-pluto-discovery-plates). It was the most distant world humans had ever seen. Decades later, even the powerful Hubble Space Telescope struggled to get a good look at the dwarf planet – the Hubble image of Pluto is just a sickly yellow smudge (https://esahubble.org/images/opo1006h/).
So when astronomers set out to search for planets around other stars (aka “exoplanets), they knew it wouldn’t be easy. Our closest neighbor, a little red dwarf named Proxima Centauri, is 7,000 times further away from us than Pluto. Any plan...
![How Romance Scammers Cheat You Out of Your Cash and Your Heart [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uq8tKXhvanc/3.jpg)
- Title
- How Romance Scammers Cheat You Out of Your Cash and Your Heart [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Like prey being hunted by a predator, we’re susceptible when we’re alone. This makes an ideal hunting ground for romance scammers, who can exploit our vulnerability and isolation to con us out of our hearts and our cash.
To remove scammers’ power, take away your isolation and arm yourself with tools that’ll help keep your heart and finances safer.
- Title
- What we found when we went looking for another Earth
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- In the last few years, scientists have discovered thousands of exoplanets - and a lot of them are surprisingly weird.
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Watch part 2, How to find a planet you can't see, here: https://youtu.be/STsI6IbPbGQ
In 1584, Italian friar Giordano Bruno argued that other stars had planets of their own and that those planets had inhabitants. He had no real proof of his claims — they just felt true. But they were heretical enough to get the attention of the Roman Catholic Church. The Inquisition arrested Bruno, put his tongue in a vice, and burned him at the stake.
Four hundred years later, the idea of “exoplanets” (the term for planets outside our solar system) had become much more popular. Books, TV, and movies teemed with alien worlds orbiting alien suns. But one thing remained the same. We still had no proof that they existed.
Then, in...
![What Does a White Lab Coat Have to Do With Online Fraud? [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Pm1tFhwq3kM/3.jpg)
- Title
- What Does a White Lab Coat Have to Do With Online Fraud? [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Have you heard of the lab coat effect? It’s when humans are more likely to trust someone they believe is an authority figure. Think: doctors, tax and debt collectors, maintenance workers, utility company reps, and more.
Unfortunately, fraudsters exploit this phenomenon to prey on our trust and potentially trick us into buying faulty products, paying fake bills, or sending money to unverified sources. One of the easiest ways to avoid falling victim to the lab coat effect is to pause, step back, and verify the information of the person or group asking for money.
- Title
- Why the US photographed its own WWII concentration camps
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Dorothea Lange’s photos of the incarceration of Japanese Americans went largely unseen for decades.
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US President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 — two months after Japan’s bombing of the US Navy base at Pearl Harbor. It empowered the US army to designate strategic “military areas” from which any and all people deemed a threat could be forcibly removed. This began a process of placing 120,000 Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II.
To control the narrative around the removal, the government created a new department, the War Relocation Authority, and hired photographers to document the process. One of those photographers was Dorothea Lange, who had become famous during the 1930s for her Great Depression photographs for the Farm Security Administration.
Her images featured Jap...
- Title
- Linoleum flooring is cool, actually
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Everything HGTV told you about linoleum is wrong.
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If there were a floor covering Olympics, marble would probably get gold. Hardwood would get silver. Bronze would maybe go to tile — and linoleum wouldn’t even make the trials. Arguably the most maligned flooring there is, these days linoleum is considered (at best) something you rip out to get to the real floor. But it wasn’t always that way.
Linoleum burst on the scene in the late 19th century, the brainchild of an eccentric inventor named Frederick Walton. Before long it was an international sensation and considered the height of luxury. It was even featured on the Titanic and in British Parliament. For nearly a century, linoleum remained the flooring of choice in homes, shops, and schools all over the world.
But when linoleum fell, it fell hard. For decades it was rel...
- Title
- Hog farming has a massive poop problem
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Inside North Carolina’s search for solutions for its thousands of pig manure lagoons.
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For this third episode of our video series with Vox’s Future Perfect team, we went to North Carolina, a state that for decades has been a battleground over the public health impact of hog farming.
Watch Episode 1, How 4 companies control the beef industry: https://youtu.be/3_hCLjUrK1E
Watch Episode 2, The chicken industry's worker safety problem: https://youtu.be/Ia3abCiYX3w
Animal Charity Evaluators provided funding without editorial input for the production of this series.
I interviewed two people in North Carolina who do not appear in the video: Sherri White-Williamson, who heads the Environmental Justice Community Action Network, or EJCAN, a nonprofit working toward water testing in the area, particularly of private wel...
![Why You Should Be Wary About Incredible Online Shopping Deals [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b5O-19CHMRI/3.jpg)
- Title
- Why You Should Be Wary About Incredible Online Shopping Deals [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- We’re always on the hunt for a perfect deal, but sometimes, scammers can exploit that desire and have us turning over our hard-earned money for a big bunch of nothing.
But why?
Because our desire for reward usually outweighs our fear of repercussions — kind of like a mouse ignoring a trap so they can get that must-have piece of cheese. When we’re presented with an incredible deal, it clouds our critical judgement, making it hard for us to say no. But usually, if a deal is too good to be true, then it probably is.
- Title
- 2021, in 6 minutes
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Year two of the coronavirus pandemic was filled with vaccines and variants, summer Olympics, joys, and sorrows.
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2021 was a year like no other. Vox looks back on the biggest moments that defined an unpredictable year.
Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter. Sign up here: http://vox.com/video-newsletter
Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com
Support Vox's reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution: http://vox.com/contribute-now
Shop the Vox merch store: http://vox.com/store
Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE
Follow Vox on Facebook: http://facebook.com/vox
Follow Vox on Twitter: http://twitter.com/voxdotcom...
- Title
- Why the James Webb Space Telescope looks like that
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- A NASA astrophysicist explains humanity’s big new toy
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After 25 years and nearly $10 billion, the James Webb Space Telescope has finally left planet Earth. Billed as a successor to the beloved Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb’s mirror is six times larger and its instruments are tuned to observe longer wavelengths, in order to detect the stretched-out light from primitive galaxies 13.5 billion light years away.
That primary mission — to see the first stars and galaxies that formed after the Big Bang — determined the unusual and challenging design of the telescope. Instead of a shiny tube, the Webb Telescope looks like a giant honeycomb riding on a silver surfboard. The short answer to why it looks like that is: It needs to be very big and very cold.
In the video above, NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn and Vox's Joss Fong build a small m...
![Why Time-Sensitive Decisions Can Trigger Our FOMO [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LsYYl-h0c-4/1.jpg)
- Title
- Why Time-Sensitive Decisions Can Trigger Our FOMO [Advertiser Content From Zelle®]
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- “You do not have to be gullible to be scammed. Vulnerability is part of the human condition.”
There’s a reason why scammers use ticking clocks and false urgency to trick us into bad decisions: It’s because it works. Even the savviest of the self-proclaimed ‘unscammable’ can fall victim to this effective tool that scammers use to get you to fork over your hard-earned money.
One of the simplest ways to keep your money safe is to understand the psychology behind these tactics, so you can learn how to avoid them.
- Title
- Why we need a better flu shot
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- A universal flu vaccine is closer than you think.
Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO
The flu vaccine is something many of us take for granted. Every year, starting in the early fall, “free flu shot available” signs start to line pharmacies and clinics – and yet in the US, only around half the population actually gets the vaccine. When talking about the flu, many equate it to a terrible cold, inconvenient at worst. But annual strains of influenza are estimated to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. The reality is, we’ve been living with influenza for so long that we often forget just how dangerous it can be.
The reason we need an annual vaccine for the flu is that it’s particularly prone to changing. That ability to mutate is also what makes it particularly good at causing pandemic-level threats. The last four global pandemics before Covid-19 were caused by an influenz...
- Title
- How this house took over the US
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- Why is the Craftsman bungalow everywhere? It’s due to a socialist artist, an entrepreneurial furniture maker, and a real estate movement.
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To anyone who’s been a casual architecture fan (or spent time trawling Airbnb and Zillow), the “Craftsman bungalow” is a familiar term. Today, historic districts around the US celebrate the Craftsman’s beauty. But how did this style of house become so ubiquitous and so beloved?
The above video explores the history of the Craftsman bungalow, from the 1800s Arts & Crafts movement, to its popularization in America, to its commodification in the 1910s and 1920s.
Further reading:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Stickley%2C+Gustav%2C+1858-1942%22
Want to check out “The Craftsman” and Stickley’s Craftsman home plans? Archive.org has a lot of his work, including e...
- Title
- Why movie theaters aren't dead yet
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- The "theatrical window" has shrunk. But it’s still there.
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Covid-19 looked like it could have been the end of movie theaters. Theaters couldn’t show movies. Some of the biggest American theater chains were on the brink of bankruptcy. And US movie studios started trying something new: releasing big movies digitally and in theaters at the same time.
The "theatrical window," when a movie plays only in theaters, typically has a minimum length set by deals between movie studios and movie theaters. You might remember a time when the theatrical window was long, and you had to wait close to a year before a movie would come out on video or DVD. But over the years, as options for home viewing have proliferated, that window has shrunk. By 2019, many movies were becoming available at home less than 3 months after their original release.
Behind that shri...
- Title
- Big questions about the Covid booster shot, answered
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- How omicron has reframed the booster debate.
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Much of the messaging from authorities around Covid-19 booster shots has been confusing — and that’s partly because scientists themselves haven’t always agreed on who needs them. When many countries began to recommend boosters not just for the older and high-risk, but for all adults, they were essentially taking sides in a still-unresolved debate around that question: Why give an extra dose to healthy adults who are still very protected against severe Covid-19 cases from their original dose?
But since the omicron variant has emerged, many have changed their minds. To understand why, we talked to one formerly skeptical expert who scheduled her own booster shot based on what she learned about omicron. We spoke to her about what happens in your immune system when you get that third (or second) shot, and why it...
- Title
- Why the Belarus migrant crisis is different
- Date posted
- 4 years ago
- Description
- And what it tells us about the EU.
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A crisis has been escalating along the border that divides Belarus and the European Union. For several weeks, thousands of migrants looking to reach the EU were trapped between Poland and Belarus, living in freezing camps with no humanitarian aid. Today, the migrants have been moved to warehouses for shelter, but this crisis isn’t over.
Since 2015, Europe has experienced several migration waves, but this one was different: This one was manufactured. Belarus lured migrants to the border to pressure the EU to lift sanctions. And while this particular crisis has started to die down, the problem isn’t going away. It’s the result of a complex EU migration policy that has opened the door to the exploitation of migrants, and until that policy is fixed, Belarus or other bordering nations could create a crisis all over again....
- Title
- Why the pope dresses like that
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- The hidden meaning behind Pope Francis’s clothes.
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The pope is one of the most recognizable figures in the world, in large part because of the clothes he wears: all white, ornate ponchos, various hats. But all popes don’t actually dress alike. There are different articles of clothing that correspond to different events and times of year, and there is a certain amount of personal choice involved.
Pope Francis has made waves across the Catholic Church with his relatively progressive, modern takes on church doctrine and tradition, and his clothing is a visual shorthand for those policies.
To learn more about the history of papal clothing, see The Church Visible: the ceremonial life and protocol of the Roman Catholic Church by James-Charles Noonan https://archive.org/details/churchvisiblecer0000noon
For a deep dive about Pope Fra...
- Title
- Why the US government is always shutting down
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- How the US can shut down but other countries can’t
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Towards the end of every year the countdown until the United States government goes into a shutdown begins. Congress and the President usually avoid it in the last hour, but sometimes they don’t manage to agree on a spending bill and the government actually shuts down. The US is really the only country that does this.
The longest one in history, in 2019, lasted 35 days. Federal workers — and many contractors — didn’t get a paycheck for 35 days. Some of those employees were furloughed, meaning they didn’t have to go into work, but more than half of them still had to go into the office unpaid.
So… why? It goes back to the Constitution and how the federal government funds its agencies. We talk to a law professor and workers who have been through a shutdown to explain.
R...
- Title
- Why you don’t hear about the ozone layer anymore
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- Finally, some good news about the environment.
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In the ’80s, scientists discovered there was a hole in the ozone over the South Pole. A significant layer of gas that deflects much of the sun’s radiation was disappearing much faster than anyone expected. Projections suggested it would collapse by 2050, increasing skin cancer rates, harming crops, and destroying the marine food chain. The situation was dire. But today, we are on the path to recovery.
Dr. Susan Solomon, among other scientists, contributed key findings to understand what was depleting the ozone layer and how to address it. In this video she takes us back to her expedition to Antarctica, breaks down how we managed to fix this huge problem, and looks at our next big environmental challenge — climate change — with the unbridled optimism that drove her to fix the ozone hole.
Fu...
![How Farmers Are Fighting Challenges to Keep Food on Our Tables [Advertiser content from Tillamook]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9maR-JiL5jY/2.jpg)
- Title
- How Farmers Are Fighting Challenges to Keep Food on Our Tables [Advertiser content from Tillamook]
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- “When the average person thinks about a farm, they most likely think of something from yesteryear. They don’t necessarily think about a part of our society that is vital to our food, our water, our climate and our future,” says David Haight, the VP of Programs at American Farmland Trust (AFT). But those farmers are taking on modern problems. Facing issues like land loss, extreme weather, and economic disruption, individual farms are feeling the heat. “I worry that we’re at a tipping point with agriculture,” says Dayna Burtness of Nettle Valley Farm, an independent farmer who raises her pigs on pasture.
To read more about the challenges that farmers face, and how you can get involved and support farmers, visit www.eater.com/ad/22686199/farmers-adapting-climate-change-tillamook
- Title
- The architecture trend dividing London's elites
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- Underground lairs have hollowed out London.
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One of London’s most unusual luxury trends might be its gigantic basements.
Professor Roger Burrows and his coauthors collected data on every basement construction project in from 2008 to 2019, and mapped it. They found more than 7,000 basement additions had been built. A combination of historic preservation laws, rapidly ballooning property values, and changing tastes have led to a boom in basement building.
This construction hasn’t been without complications. Many of the existing residents see the constant construction as a “plague” that’s hollowed out the city, contributed to air pollution, and even changed the acoustics of their homes. Burrows sees it as a symbol of increasing wealth inequality in the global city.
Correction: Typo 1:25, Roger Burrows is Professor of cities a...
