A recent column by the director of New Zealand’s Suicide Prevention Office argued that ‘normalising talking about suicide’ doesn’t help. Linda Collins, the author of a forthcoming book about losing a child to suicide, wonders how silence can ever be a solution. Just this week, a friend who helps maintain a suicide prevention website messaged … Read more
An adventure story that splits the difference between action-packed intrigue and touching melancholy, Sam Brooks reviews Lizard’s Tale, which has just won the Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction. When you think of settings for a children’s novel, the dawn before the dusk of the Second World War in Singapore is probably … Read more
Industrial robots can make our cars and planes, but for some reason the sight of a mechanical omelette machine filled Duncan Greive with existential dread. I wandered into the restaurant trying not to look too keen. It was an entirely futile exercise – the M Social’s kitchen had been open for breakfast for exactly two … Read more
Writer and actress Michelle Langstone reflects on loneliness on a trip to Singapore. The Spinoff Summer Journey series is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here. Three days in Singapore as a step-down converter from the bougainvillea-stained Greek holiday that has left my … Read more
With global angst mounting about the buildup of plastic ending up in landfills and the environment, chemists and materials scientists are considering pyrolysis as an option. But how does it work? And is it really a solution? For decades, putting used plastic into recycling bins was considered a convenient way to get rid of rubbish, … Read more
Sensors that turn the city into a ‘body’ which can detect its own workings. ‘Digital twins’ that are new improved versions of the original town. The sprint for the urban environment of the future is on, writes Mark Thomas. In his recent book The Fourth Age, technology entrepreneur Byron Reese says we will see more … Read more