The Benzodiazepine Pilgrim
A man visits the Croatian town where Leo Sternbach, the inventor of benzodiazepines, was born. Benzos were the author’s drug of choice. Thankfully the town’s Margherita pizza outsells the Valium.
Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Like many of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s nature reserves, the massive Mangrove Marine Park has world class habitat and little funding to protect it. Deforestation for charcoal and poaching threatens the landscape, but regulations eliminate villagers’ ways of life. How does a tiny staff patrol such a huge landscape and protect its people?
Caviar of the Desert
Collecting ant larvae with Mexico’s escamoleros, a natural food turned luxury that can earn people enough to renovate their kitchen in one season.
Where Europe Begins?
In our era of increasing geopolitical tensions between Europe, Russia and the US, one journalist is traveling the hazy, disputed border between Europe and Asia, searching for clues about where one ends and the other begins, and why we bother splitting the world into East and West. In this story, he travels from Bulgaria to Georgia, which claims to be and to have always been European, despite conflicting indicators, like not belonging to the EU.
Chongqing’s Number One Noodle Obsessive
In Sichuan’s spicy-noodle capital, a local xiaomian aficionado takes a visitor on a quest for the ultimate bowl.
