Wait, Swedes Do What at Mealtime? (The Conversation)
by Timothy Heffernan
Twitter and Reddit posts about Swedish families excluding visiting children from meals sparked an online storm. What does it tell us about cultural differences in food cultures?

Freedom and Conformity in Ancient China (Aeon)
by Tao Jiang
The Zhuangzi, a foundational Taoist text, challenged Confucian ideas about ritual behavior and duty to the state. But how did its sometimes radical ideas about personal freedom play out in Chinese philosophy and politics?

The Power of Poop (Wired)
by Jenny Morber
For biologists, there’s a lot to love about feces. An animal’s droppings can hold clues to its diet, exposure to pollution, and even social status. For species that are on the brink of extinction, scat can be an especially helpful way to learn things without bothering the creatures. Is it time to build a poop ark?

Making Non-Crime Pay (Vox)
by Sigal Samuel
We all want to know how to stop violence. A long-term study from Liberia that researchers hope to replicate in Chicago may have an answer: therapy and cash.

Carbon Offsets for Tanzania’s Hadza People (Yale Environment 360)
by Fred Pearce
Carbon offsetting schemes are infamous as accounting tricks that ignore the ground-level reality of forests and the people who live in them. Can a plan created with the Hadza people of Tanzania chart a different course?

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