The Weekly Digest

Weekly Digest #15

There wouldn’t have been any cities without agriculture.

Or rather, there wouldn’t have been any cities if certain edible grasses didn’t evolve the way they did.

Even evolution evolves. About ten thousand years ago the world witnessed a second…

Weekly Digest #14

It’s always a pleasure to read Michael Pollan’s writings. His books primarily talk about our relationship with food, and how it has dramatically changed with industrialization. Through his most popular work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, he followed the 3 food chains that sustain a modern American diet…

Weekly Digest #13

There is a sense of objectivity in the results of scientific expeditions. Mathematical and experimental rigour guarantee it.

But there remains certain subjectivity, told through the individual stories of people, that only become visible if you are looking for it. Kudos…

Weekly Digest #12

Geographer, naturalist, explorer and philosopher. Alexander Von Humboldt was a true polymath and through his wonderful writings, he inspired a new generation of naturalists.

In Views of Nature, Humboldt showed how nature could have an influence on people’s imagination…

Weekly Digest #11

Who will dare to write a history of human goodness?

We must remind ourselves again that history as usually written is quite different from history as usually lived: the historian records the exceptional because it is interesting — because it is exceptional…Behind the red…

Weekly Digest #10

An unparalleled act of plunder, avarice and corporate violence.

It was not the British government that began seizing great chunks of India in the mid-eighteenth century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide…

Weekly Digest #9

Behind every monumental discovery, there are people who, against all odds, made it happen. Few narratives give more than a cursory glance to the stories of the people behind them. In Black Hole Blues, Janna Levin tries to understand the obsessions, aspirations, and trials of the scientists behind…

Weekly Digest #8

In medicine, figuring out “whats’s wrong” is essential for demarcating the limits of “what’s right”.

Medicine, the sociologist Everett Hughes once observed wryly, perceives the world through “mirror writing.” Illness is used to define wellness. Abnormalcy marks the…

Weekly Digest #7

Finding a good book to read is not an easy task. Is there any way to make it simpler? Diving through books-of-the-year lists from certain websites or publications can sometimes help in finding them. Or maybe you can pick up books suggested by notable figures you admire or get a strong…