Free Reading Material

Number of words: 1,725 Our lives have become tech-centric. It’s starting to “own” us. It’s time to seek ways to redesign our relationship with technology. Enter Digital Minimalism. In 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the future: the iPhone 3 and, along with it, the App Store. It marked the beginning of the mobile revolution, the era … Read more

Number of words: 1,406 FAA employees warned as early as seven years ago that Boeing Co. had too much sway over safety approvals of new aircraft, prompting an investigation by Department of Transportation auditors who confirmed the agency hadn’t done enough to “hold Boeing accountable.” The 2012 investigation also found that discord over Boeing’s treatment … Read more

Number of words: 478 Choosing to forget something uses more brain power than trying to remember it, according to a study that could lead to treatments to help people rid themselves of unwanted memories. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that in order to forget an unwanted experience, more attention should be … Read more

Number of words: 380 Spider silk, known as one of the strongest materials for its weight, turns out to have another unusual property. It might lead to new kinds of artificial muscles or robotic actuators, researchers have found. The fibres, according to study experts, respond very strongly to changes in humidity. Above a certain level … Read more

Number of words: 475 Sharks are at the top of the marine food chain for a reason. Their massive size along with a dazzling row of extra-sharp teeth make them the fiercest hunters in our oceans. But it turns out that the shark’s aquatic dominance reaches down into its very DNA, and through its mutations, … Read more

Number of words: 644 On a rare rainy day early last year, my husband, Alex, and I toured what, with any luck, would become the most exciting and daunting purchase of our lives: a cream-colored bungalow-style fixer-upper, built in 1924, a few blocks from our rental in Santa Barbara, Calif. What the house lacked in … Read more

Number of words: 1,003 I HAVE been studiously following the mantra given by George Perkovich, and, accordingly, haven’t watched Indian TV news for a couple of years or more. I would advise my Pakistani friends to do the same with their TV. Switch it off. The celebrated defence analyst, author of a seminal work on … Read more

Number of words: 957 MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was. … Read more