Pole Vaulting, Einstein's Brain, Food Trends, Parenting, Apple Watch

Reasons To Get High

Matt Osgood | Vice | 16th March 2015

Pole vaulting is a exercise in perversity. It is reckoned the third most difficult of all sports, but carries little in the way of prestige or money, even for a champion. It is also very dangerous: An accident at 20 feet is like "someone falling off the roof of their house while running as fast at they can with a thick pole in their hands". So why do it? "You won't find a vaulter jumping high who doesn't have at least one screw loose" (1,300 words)

Driving Mr Albert

Michael Paterniti | Harper's | 1st October 1997

A road-trip across America with Albert Einstein's brain — and with the retired New Jersey pathologist, Thomas Harvey, who helped himself to the brain while doing an autopsy on Einstein in 1955. Forty years later, Harvey decides that he wants to return what remains of the brain to Einstein's grand-daughter, Evelyn, in Berkeley. "We just start driving. For four thousand miles. Me, Harvey, and, in the trunk, Einstein’s brain" (18,000 words)

Craft Versus Kraft

Gary Silverman | Financial Times | 17th March 2015 | | Read with 1Pass

America's big food manufacturers have missed the turn towards healthier eating, and are losing ground to a myriad of smaller competitors better attuned to consumer trends. Supermarket shoppers want more protein and more diversity. They want less processed food and fewer additives. They eat out more. "They want to know how their food is being made – and who is making it. Craft is challenging Kraft" (2,200 words)

An Age Of Irrational Parenting

Jennifer Senior | New York | 13th March 2015

America's streets are safer than they have been for decades. So why are parents and police so nervous about children going out on their own? One reason may be the sense that there are "fewer eyes" watching over them: "It can’t entirely be an accident that fears about child safety have risen in tandem with women’s workforce participation". But mainly, parents are having fewer children later in life, so they value them more highly (1,030 words)

How Apple Makes The Watch

Greg Koenig | Atomic Delights | 12th March 2015

Industrial designer scrutinises the metal-working technologies used to make the Apple Watch, and is dazzled. "I see a process that could only have been created by a team looking to execute on a level far beyond what was necessary or what will be noticed. This isn't a supply chain, it is a ritual Apple is performing to to bring themselves up to the standards necessary to compete against companies with centuries of experience" (4,460 words)

Video of the day: Magna Carta

What to expect: British Library cartoon narrated by Terry Jones, celebrating the Magna Carta (3'32")

Thought for the day

If you can control your emotions, chances are you don’t have too many
Douglas Coupland (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Coupland)