Fun fact: Male platypuses have ankle spurs connected to venom glands







© Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

















Former diplomat Arthur Snell says a heating planet is accelerating conflict and migration – and fostering a new age of empire. Democracies are dangerously unprepared, he warns
After a diplomatic career spent in the war zones of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, the last place Arthur Snell expected to cheat death was on holiday.
But it was an uncomfortably close brush with a falling boulder while climbing in the Swiss Alps that helped to bring his personal and professional lives together. His beloved mountains were, he realised, becoming less stable thanks to a changing climate. And if physical geography drives the way states exercise their power, as classic geopolitical theory argues, then a heating planet must be dislodging more than rocks.
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© Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian

© Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian

© Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian
Using raw honey for fermentation makes this jam a gut health powerhouse
Rachel de Thample is one of my food heroines. She’s the author of six books and course director of the College of Naturopathic Medicine’s natural chef diploma, and has also been head of food for Abel & Cole and commissioning editor of Waitrose Food Illustrated, among so much else. She trained with the likes of Marco Pierre White, Heston Blumenthal and Peter Gordon, and now teaches fermentation and gut health at River Cottage HQ, where I cut my own teeth in teaching eco-gastronomy more than 20 years ago. While researching honey fermenting recently, I came across her recipe in River Cottage’s Bees & Honey Handbook, which I’ve adapted here so you can make as much as you like using a variety of aromatics.
It’s essential to use raw honey for fermenting, because it is naturally acidic (low pH) and contains wild yeasts, beneficial microbes and active enzymes that help create a healthy fermentation environment once diluted. Pasteurised honey, on the other hand, is heat-treated to slow crystallisation, which also destroys many of the naturally occurring yeasts, beneficial bacteria and enzymes needed for fermentation.
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© Photograph: Tom Hunt/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tom Hunt/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tom Hunt/The Guardian
Study finds workers at 20 S&P 500 firms rely on Medicaid and Snap as CEO pay and buybacks soar
Many workers at some of the largest US corporations have no choice but to rely on healthcare and food assistance because of low wages, even as CEO compensation continues to grow, according to a new report released Wednesday.
The report, published by the Institute of Policy Studies, focuses on 20 of the S&P 500 corporations that have primarily US-based workforces and report the lowest median wages of the group.
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© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images