Hello again lovely email friends, I hope all is well with you. Soon after I started writing these emails I noticed, after an email had made its way to you, I’d start finding things that would’ve been perfect for inclusion.

It’s little more than a frequency illusion: the act of writing the email involves me thinking about one topic for a few days, rummaging around for things that might be relevant, and this doesn’t stop once the email is done. So, in a change from your regular viewing, I’m giving over the last emails of 💥BLAST!’s first year to all those additional interesting odds-and-ends I’ve collected. Ready?

01. Houseplants: 🌱 The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids: Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses. 🍆 Plant Sex: Mal, a quarterly journal of sexuality and erotics, adopts this theme as an opportunity to explore progressive sexual politics. 🎵 Houseplants by Squid is a banger.

02. Teenagers: 👫 How and Where Do Teens Make Friends Online These Days? 73 teens discuss how they make and maintain their friendships online. 🤷‍♀️ WTF is a Gen Z? The next generation in their own words. 🛌 6 Gen Z Stereotypes Busted: insight into the teenage consumers companies want to win over.

03. Micromobility: 🔥 Scooters aren’t so climate-friendly after all: A look at the full lifetime emissions of the vehicles call into question the ecological assumptions around micromobility.
🔌 The high costs of electric scooter maintenance: An electric scooter rental startup discloses its old scooters required 26,000 parts to be replaced for every 1 million trips.
♻️ The Game-Changing Leap Towards Sustainable Micro-Mobility: Scooter operator TIER discusses the shift away from off-the-shelf models to more sustainable approaches.
💀 At least 29 people have died in electric scooter crashes: It’s not a huge number, but it’s not zero either.
📜 Cities need to deliver more effective e-scooter regulation: Why Copenhagen’s e-scooter tender model is not one to follow, and why other European cities need to enforce bolder regulation of the sector.
🗑 Loitering Objects: Why are objects allowed to remain in public spaces where people aren’t?
🛴 Audi combined a scooter and a skateboard into one dweeby rideable: Audi is just the latest automaker to get into the micromobility market. You ride the E-tron concept electric scooter like a skateboard, up to 12.5 mph with a range of 12.5 miles.
🇪🇺 Brexit ‘puts brakes on UK launch of e-scooters’: So says Sweden’s Voi Technology, which claims Britain risks being left behind, and is probably frustrated not to be able to launch in London. But…
🇬🇧 Electric scooters could soon be road-legal in UK for first time: Trials in cities around the country could take place soon, with ministers meeting to decide next steps.

04. Apocalypse: 😱 A Brief Guide to the End of the World: Humanity faces existential peril as never before. But whether or not we go extinct is up to us.

05. Gymfluencers: 🚴‍♀️ Peloton Is a Phenomenon. Can It Last? Exercise manias like the Thighmaster and Tae Bo have all come and gone. Peloton is trying to defy that trend. 🙏 Peloton’s Biggest Fans Have an Almost Religious Zeal: Peloton aficionados say the latest exercise craze gives them a sense of community they sorely missed. 📉Peloton Commercial Controversy Causes Stock Drop, Backlash: Damn, people really hate that advert. 😞 Peloton Ad Husband Is Worried That His Acting Career Is Dead: Sean Hunter said that his image is now being “associated with sexism, with the patriarchy, with abuse,” even though that’s “not” who he is.

06. The Attenborough Effect: 🎣 David Attenborough’s worried about this Ocean threat - and it’s not plastic: The broadcaster and naturalist has warned industrial overfishing is putting the entire ecosystem at risk.

07. Eurovision: 🌈 Why I Love Eurovision, and Why You Should, Too: With Eurovision now broadcast in America, a new audience needs to get its head around baffling politics and obscure pop stunts. 🤷🏻‍♂️ The Eurovision Song Contest, explained: In short, Eurovision is the most delightful music competition in the world, and you should absolutely watch it. 💃🏾 Why are Abba so popular? Still one of the most successful bands of all time. 🎤 Loreen wins Eurovision Top 250 for the eighth time: The winner amongst winners.

08. Mental Health Visibility: 👩‍⚕️ Half of people don’t tell their doctor if they’re feeling depressed or suicidal, study finds: 40-47.5% of participants chose not to tell their GP that they had experienced depression, suicide, sexual or domestic abuse. 👩‍💻 We need to be honest about tech culture and mental health: The reality is, like all of us, entrepreneurs have a breaking point. 🤳 New Studies Show Just How Bad Social Media Is For Mental Health: Two new studies show not just correlation but causation—tweaking your time on social media has measurable effects on mental health. 😱 Why Do Horror Films Always Get Mental Health Wrong? Cinema-goers, charities and campaigners have raised concerns about the link between violence and mental illness in the opening scenes of Midsommar. 🗣 Why Business Leaders Should Talk About Their Mental Health: There’s been a change when talking about mental health, and we can all learn from the shift.

09. Amazon: 📚 Amazon at 25: The story of a giant: The BBC examines how Amazon’s empire has been built, from book retailer to global giant.
🛰 Amazon has asked for permission to launch 3,200 broadband satellites: It says it wants to connect the tens of millions around the globe who don’t have broadband internet access.
🤖 Amazon’s rise to power has been great for consumers. But is it too big? Despite increasing criticism, Amazon refuses to acknowledge many of the unintended consequences its rise to dominance has spawned.
🗺 Why thousands of Amazon packages converge on a tiny Montana town: How Roundup, MO became a hub in Amazon’s supply chain.
🤕 Amazon Warehouse Reports Show Worker Injuries: Internal injury reports suggest convenience is coming at the expense of worker safety.
📦 Cyber Monday and Black Friday flood the struggling recycling system with cardboard: A rise in curbside cardboard waste from packaging, nicknamed the ‘Amazon effect’, peaks around the holidays and leads to more cardboard in landfills.

10. Looking Up: 🌲 What can an embodied history of trees teach us about life? What if trees embody the history of all life on Earth? 🌱 Tree planting ‘has mind-blowing potential’ to tackle climate crisis: Research shows a trillion trees could be planted to capture huge amount of carbon dioxide. 🌰 The secret language of trees: They’re able to communicate with each other through a vast root system and symbiotic fungi. 🍃 Why forests and rivers are the most potent health tonic around: The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom. 🌳 Never Underestimate the Intelligence of Trees: Plants communicate, nurture their seedlings, and get stressed. Seriously.

11. After Chernobyl: 💣 Why France is eyeing nuclear power again: energy experts were surprised that, after years of backing away from nuclear power, France is adjusting its stance on nuclear wants to build six huge reactors.

12. Photography as Protest: ✊ The Power of Protest Photography: Coverage of a travelling exhibition entitled “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”, capturing the rallies and riots that erupted in New York City between 1980 and 2000. 📸 On Protest Photography: Magnum photographers exploring the power of photography to change the status quo. 🖼 You, Me & Cold War Steve - The International Exhibition of the People: A new exhibition project, available for anyone to put up anywhere they choose.

💌 💥BLAST! continues to grow only by word-of-mouth. Know someone who’ll appreciate it? Invite them to join in at blast.red 😘

13. Da Vinci: 🎫 Mona Lisa fans decry brief encounter with their idol in Paris: Louvre visitors complain of being moved on in seconds after spending hours in queue. 🖼 The ’earlier’ Mona Lisa mystery: A painting of the Mona Lisa hangs above a fireplace in a London flat in the 1960s. Is this picture an earlier version of the world famous portrait?

14. The Age of Guilt: 🗜 The value of shame: Immanuel Kant held that moral education is hydraulic: shame squashes down our vices, making space for virtue to rise up.

15. Amateur Hour: 🤷🏻‍♂️ Deliberate Amateurs: Surround yourself with people who can look at challenges with fresh eyes, who are not afraid to ask unconventional questions and who can challenge the status quo. 👱‍♀️ Who is Emma Chamberlain? Teens are abandoning hyper-produced personalities for people who seem just like them.

16. Happiness: 😕 Why humans aren’t designed to be happy: Even when all our material and biological needs are satisfied, a state of sustained happiness will still remain a theoretical and elusive goal.
👕 Cheerfulness cannot be compulsory, whatever the T-shirts say: Practising the Greek virtues of wisdom and courage is one thing. But being cheerful the American way borders on psychosis.
😌 Reason to be cheerful? ‘Optimists live longer’ study reports: But this research cannot prove cause and effect. While researchers attempted to adjust their analysis for many influencing factors, it’s hard to remove their influence fully.
😲 The Happiness Ruse: How did feeling good become a matter of relentless work; a never-to-be-attained goal which makes us miserable?
📊 The 3 Paradoxes of Happiness and Success: striving for a better tomorrow is at odds with happiness now.
🌳 Into the Forest: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness: In this book, immunologist and Forest Medicine expert Dr Qing Li examines the unprecedented benefits of the world’s largest natural health resource: the great outdoors.