In a recent interview about the digital currency Bitcoin, Stephen Colbert asked Adam Davidson of NPR's Planet Money about the value of money, sparking the response 'The problem with thinking too much about these questions is you start thinking, wait, what is money?'

But after witnessing or experiencing recent economic...

Oil companies aren't known for their ethics. Last month an ExxonMobil pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, wreaked havoc in the small town, destroying people's houses, gardens and local wildlife. Exxon initially claimed that the spill was not due to the Pegasus pipeline. Then, they said the size of...

It was late at night when I accidentally consumed dairy, which I am - apparently - deadly allergic to. My tongue swelled up straight away, followed by my lips and throat. I looked in the mirror and tried to decide how serious it was. Probably not very, I thought.

Next...

It's a great time for women, isn't it? Last week events took place around the country for International Women's Day, families celebrated their loved ones on Mother's Day, and Women's History Month is currently rocking the US. Try not to think about that fact that when you say the word...

Protesters have always used chants and slogans as a potent method of drawing attention to pressing issues. Now a newly-formed campaign group called Shell Out Sounds (SOS) use their voices to protest the oil industry's involvement in the British arts.

On Friday evening, the Southbank Centre in London - allegedly...

A war is being waged on British soil between Big Energy and a grassroots campaign group known as No Dash for Gas.

Earlier this week French corporation EDF Energy made the bold, slightly reckless decision to sue the 21 activists from No Dash for Gas who

A geeky male wearing thick glasses and a lab coat peers at a fizzing test tube. He has a 'Eureka-moment' look on his face, apparently untameable hair, and he probably looks a bit like that boy in your class at school who you avoided like the plague. You know, the...

'Spare the rod and spoil the child' - or so the saying goes. She's got you wrapped around her little finger. He's running circles around you. And so on. But new studies show that the exact opposite to these old adages is true.

According to a body of...

Is This The Age of Communication?

In technological terms it is. One person might have a thousand Facebook 'friends'. One person can send a short message via a tweet that might be read by a million people within a minute. Or spam three million people with the click of a...

They call it 'birth rape'. Women whose rights are taken away from them during their birthing experiences, whose bodies are violated by unnecessary procedures. The term is also being used by women who are fed up with of the impact of a medical establishment that focuses on the weaknesses of...

I wonder whether approaching the subject a different way would have been more tactful. First, a barrage of questions washes over me; 'What do you mean, you're going to teach them yourself? How will you know what to teach? But you're not qualified to teach that subject?' Then, more adamantly...

British people can be strangely schizophrenic when it comes to animal welfare issues. The other day I was listening to a friend arguing about the evils of the Spanish bullfighting industry. While I do share her concerns, I cannot fully support her passionate stand against a foreign issue while her...

"She's controversial", one reporter said about Anne Marie-Slaughter recently. I don't agree. You know when you read something that really resonates with you? Marie-Slaughter's essay in The Atlantic, Why Women Still Can't Have It All, speaks for the many stretched mothers in the western world who are struggling...

"I wish I had fallen for a Brahmin", she said with all sincerity, shaking her head in my direction. I murmured words of understanding and shook my head back. My moral compass was shaking too.

Meet my friend Parvati*. We grew up together in Britain in the late 80s and...