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Voter Fraud Prevention or Vote Suppression?
The right to vote is part of the foundation of democracy and this includes the right to have one’s vote count. One part of protecting this right is preventing voter fraud. Fraud can rob legitimate voters of their right to decide the election. Another part is preventing voter suppression because it can rob people of…
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Diatoms and the Meaning of Life
In 1703, the world’s most esteemed scientific journal published a surprising letter from an anonymous correspondent. (At the time, until well into the twentieth century, anonymity often meant the scientist writing was a woman, though the word “scientist” itself was more than a century away, to be coined for a woman.) The letter reported an…
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Central heating creates political divide after France records coldest day
This is a BBC New article rewritten to imagine a world in which we were experiencing global cooling, not heating. It was written to accompany this piece. With temperatures plummeting, France is being forced to re-think its longstanding reservations about one possible answer to climate change: central heating. This week debate about la chauff (central…
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Heated debate
Exif_JPEG_PICTURE The unprecedented Europe-wide June heatwave has fanned the debate about the eco-credentials of air conditioning. Many believe that widespread adoption of the technology would be irresponsible, if not immoral, as the energy it burns would contribute to just the problem it is trying to mitigate. Thinking clearly about the issue is made difficult by…
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True Love Will Find You in the End: Kurt Vonnegut on When to Stop Trying and When to Try Again
Climbing the Andes one windy January afternoon, watching peak after peek emerge on the horizon like giant mounds of moss, I found myself wondering about the clear line toward the top where the green ends and the reddish-brown of the barren rock begins, wondering how the trees and shrubs know when to stop, how far…
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Mushrooms and Our Search for Meaning
This essay was originally published as the cover story in the Summer 2025 issue of Orion Magazine. “Who are you?” the caterpillar barks at Alice from atop the giant mushroom, and Alice, never quite having considered the question, mutters a child’s version of Emily Dickinson’s “I’m nobody! Who are you?” Before he was Lewis Carroll,…
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