10 things we learned making the new issue of FFA

Slime moulds – or myxomycetes – sound gross, however are literally utterly awe-inspiring. The tiny, brightly-coloured blobs develop all over the place, from leaf litter to lifeless wooden to blackberry thorns (see picture). Someplace between an animal and a fungus, they’re confoundingly onerous to categorise, however scientists have discovered that they reside first as transferring, looking slime (that may clear up complicated issues and discover their approach by means of mazes), earlier than morphing into fruiting our bodies of astonishing magnificence. They’re one among seven wonders of nature to look out for this winter.

Picture: Barry Webb

Should you loved rapping alongside to Grandmaster Flash and Snoop Dogg within the Nineteen Nineties or early 2000s, you’d be forgiven for assuming that being a rapper required an alpha male perspective and an aversion to inclusivity. After all, it seems the truth is extra nuanced, and that this picture was really one cultivated by the music business to shift data, successfully barring anybody who didn’t match the gangsta mould. Due to the web, their stronghold on the style has blown aside, permitting a brand new era of LGBTQ+ rappers to hit the mainstream – comparable to our cowl star Truffles da Killa (pictured).

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Are males’s friendships completely different to ladies’s due to the consequences of poisonous masculinity, or are they simply wired in another way? Enter ‘the godfather of friendship analysis’, Oxford College’s Prof Robin Dunbar, whose analysis knowledgeable our characteristic about ‘the male friendship recession’. Among the many headline findings are that males are wired to socialize in a extra club-like approach – as a part of the footie group, the pub quiz gang, the curry evening membership – however that doesn’t imply they’ll’t have deep and significant conversations while they’re at it.

Picture: Lars Bo Nielsen

A girl from Leicester, England, has unwittingly sparked a scene of all-female, middle-aged punk bands within the Midlands, none of whom might play an instrument earlier than they got here throughout her workshops for novices. In our new situation, the 60-year-old describes how seven new bands have been fashioned by ladies of their middle-age – and that they’re presently engaged on their first album launch.

Picture: Unglamorous Music

Have you ever (like us) been throwing your banana skins in to the compost, when in reality they might be blended into your banana muffin combine to make extra-squishy, scrumptious breakfast buns? Anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe revealed this intriguing and thrifty snippet in her recipe for ‘rise up and go muffins’, in her interview for our new situation.

Picture: Charles Deluvio

It appears like one thing you’d discover in a butcher’s store, however the string-of-sausages lichen hangs beard-like from timber in damp, wild woodlands with pure clear air – they’re illiberal of air air pollution, so should you discover some, breathe deeply. They could additionally point out that you simply’re in one of many final remaining fragments of Britain’s temperate rainforest – that are lastly receiving the popularity they deserve, because of a marketing campaign by conservationist Man Shrubsole, interviewed in our new situation.

Picture: Man Shrubsole

The Matis tribe, who reside in one of the distant valleys of the Amazon, are hunter gatherers who had been first contacted by white individuals solely forty years in the past. Make and Dani, a pair with a younger baby, describe their courtship – and the way after they first obtained collectively he couldn’t sleep fascinated with how a lot he preferred her, and worrying that she may reject him – in our characteristic celebrating the large complexity – and exquisite simplicity – of affection all over the world within the twenty first century.

Picture: Andela and Davor Rostuhar

She could also be famend for her no-nonsense boardroom manner, however in her interview for our Life Classes column, the Dragon’s Den choose revealed that she begins every morning with a grounding ritual. The enterprise guru walks barefoot across the backyard “to remind herself what’s essential in life”, earlier than heading again to her desk to chop some imply offers.

Picture: Charles Glover

You don’t must reside within the arctic to be a pro-ice swimmer, you simply want a chest freezer in your shed, full of ice. So says Cath Pendleton, the Welsh grocery store shelf stacker who tells us how she trains for her extraordinary ice swims, within the new situation of Constructive Information.

Picture: Mark Griffiths

When his tiny Portuguese village was swept up within the nation’s most dangerous wildfire up to now, Antonio Zuzarte and his neighbours determined that they needed to do one thing. Being surrounded by large (extremely flammable) eucalyptus plantations left them uncovered, in order that they have spent the final 5 years regenerating their native space, planting a extra biodiverse array of oak and chestnut, studded with loads of native cork timber – that are naturally fire-resistant, because of the tiny air pockets that make up its cell construction.

Picture: Annalisabussini
Major picture: Andela and Davor Rostuhar