Happy Wednesday, muggles. Turns out gender roles are outdated and rooted in a narrative that's just wrong. We weren't always divided as women gatherers and men hunters. A 9,000-year-old burial site was discovered in the Andes Mountains that suggests that women were not just gatherers, but actually big-game hunters. In fact, the research showed that somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of women in North and South America populations were hunters.

Thousands of farmers protest deregulation laws in India

Tue Dec 1

Arriving on tractors and by foot, farmers are protesting new agriculture laws in New Delhi. Police tried to stop them by blocking and even digging up roads, but tensions escalated last week as officers used tear gas and water cannons. 

What are the farmers protesting?

Farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh, are upset about laws passed in September that removed protections they had against larger corporations. Sold as an increase in autonomy to set price and sell without state-mandated middlemen, the new laws would also give corporations the pricing power and access they need to beat smaller farmers on price and exploit workers.

What was it like before?

Before the new laws were passed, the Indian government had set guaranteed prices for certain crops and they were sold at a state auction. Although farmers were already feeling financial strain due to crop failures and an inability to price competitively, this certainty at least allowed farmers to choose which crops they wanted to invest in. The new laws got rid of this system, which worries farmers given agriculture is the main source of income for about 58% of India’s 1.3 billion residents and the majority operate small farms.

SOURCES: CNN, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, Tribune India

How a giant rat could save your life

Sat Nov 28

There are a group of giant rats that are being called heroes for their super sniffer noses. These sensitive noses have been used to detect landmines and tuberculosis — and can work much faster than humans.

How fast are we talking?

The African giant-pouched rat can search an area the size of a tennis court for explosives in 30 minutes. When it comes to sniffing for tuberculosis, a rat can get through 100 samples in 20 minutes. Both of these can take a human as long as four days.

What makes this rat so special?

Besides its great nose, these rats live long enough to be trained, unlike other rodents. And, this seems to just be the beginning of these rats superpowers! They are now being trained to detect other odor profiles with lofty goals such as cancer detection and search-and-rescue missions after natural disasters.

SOURCES: Vice News, National Geographic, The Guardian