My Quest to Make My Dog Internet Famous

I loved Belle, my one-eyed puppy. But could I convince everybody else that she was a star? | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 2 years ago

What Happens to Our Brains When We Get Depressed?

The human brain, in all its complexity, is nearly impossible to model. One neuroscientist is trying anyway | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 2 years ago

The Taxi Driver Who Took on Uber

As the ride-share app lay waste to Montreal’s taxi industry, one cabbie decided to fight back | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 2 years ago

The Rise and Fall of a Double Agent

Cameron Ortis was an RCMP officer privy to the inner workings of Canada's national security—and in a prime position to exploit them | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Blah Blah Blah: The Lack of Small Talk Is Breaking Our Brains

Chit-chat is often dismissed as mindless and boring. But its absence over the past year is affecting you more than you think | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

The Case Against Shakespeare

The Bard has had 400 years in the limelight. It’s time our academic obsession came to an end | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

How Do You Kill an Invasive Species? Bring in a Bigger, Meaner Species to Eat It

Before pesticides, biocontrol was all scientists had to combat introduced insects. Now, the controversial tactic is coming back | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Accents, Dialects, and Discrimination

From surfer-dude drawls to Valley-girl upspeak, how we talk still defines how we’re seen | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

The International Tempest over the World’s Most Famous Teapot

Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

What DIY Couldn't Do for Me

Hustle culture tells us we'll be more productive if we optimize our homes. But the decor was never really the problem | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Building a Christmas Village

I sold my wife's clothes to build a Christmas village in my parents' basement | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Tiny Homes Won’t Fix the Housing Crisis

They're often touted as a path to affordable housing. But the scale of the problem calls for a bigger solution | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Hope Is Good. Disappointment Is Better

What the best novels teach us about the virtues of disillusionment | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Why Do We See Dead People?

Humans have always sensed the ghosts of loved ones. It's only in the last century that we convinced ourselves this was a problem | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Hinterland Who's Who and the golden age of dull but loveable TV PSAs

The enduring influence of Hinterland Who's Who | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories

Survivors of Shambhala International, a worldwide Buddhist community, reveal decades of abuse | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

How to Live with Death

Even if our odds of dying at any given moment are low, we can't escape the risks underlying our existence | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Hacking Covid-19: Amateur inventors and app developers may be key

Amateur inventors and app developers may be key to solving the pandemic's many problems | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Why We’re So Bad at Disaster Planning

Just because we see something coming, that doesn't mean we can stop it | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

On Being Bipolar

Living with a mental illness means always trying to be one of the "good" sick | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

How to Vaccinate a Planet

What it will take to build the fastest inoculation program in history and defeat COVID-19 | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

The Rise of Digital Despots

How Facebook and Twitter became the favourite tools of dictators around the world | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

What Frogs Can Teach Us about the State of the World

By tracking amphibian songs, citizen scientists are helping us understand what's happening to our environment | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Creativity Changes as We Age

As Turner lay dying, he asked to see sunlight. Renoir demanded a pencil. For many artists, the final chapter is the most creative | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Algorithms are changing what we read online

The AI of the internet determines what's relevant. One day, it decided my work wasn't | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

The Making of an Incel

How misogyny in online forums turns into real-life violence | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

The Internet We Were Promised

The World Wide Web hasn't felt this supportive since it was invented. Why did it take a pandemic? | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Selfie Culture Ruins the Great Outdoors for Everyone Else

Social media has made natural spaces more popular. It could also destroy them | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

If a Book Is Published in a Pandemic, Will Anyone Read It?

We already undervalue our artists. | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Why Nostalgia Is Our New Normal

For hundreds of years, doctors thought nostalgia was a disease. Now, it's a name for our modern condition | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Brain on Covid-19

Fear, denial, panic buying: why our minds are not designed to process threats like the coronavirus pandemic | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 3 years ago

Why Grocery Shopping Is on Its Way Out

Digital convenience is beating out daily chores like running to the store—but leaving us lonelier in the process | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

How A Good Scam Can Bypass Our Defences

Cons exploit our cognitive biases. I learned the hard way that some of us are more vulnerable than others | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The Weird World of Historical Re-Enactors

From Civil War uniforms to Viking smelts, meet the people who bring history to life | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

YouTube Gives Us Love Without the Messiness

Meet the online community providing millions with illusions of intimacy | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Hacking Diabetes

A network of amateur programmers is transforming the illness with a DIY app | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Digital Distraction Is Bad for Creativity

What a silent evening with an author I admired taught me about solitude and writing well | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The Hidden Costs of Medical Testing

Each year, doctors order more than a million tests that patients don't actually need. Some are even harmful | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The Making of Margaret Atwood

An oral history of the writer's journey from student poet to cultural prophet | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

We Should Let a Lottery Decide Our Government

Politicians are often older, wealthy, and white. Could randomly selecting average citizens lead to better representation? | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The false promise of green housing

One designer is challenging the conventional wisdom about environmentally friendly construction | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The Rise of Junk Science

Fake publications are corrupting the world of research—and influencing real news | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

The Rise and Fall of Toronto's Classiest Con Man

James Regan swindled his way through the city's monied classes. The problem was, he seemed to believe his own lies | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Is Canada Broken?

The country seems more polarized than ever. Here's what that means for the next election | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Canadian Education Is Steeped in Anti-Black Racism

For many Black youth, schools can be places of degradation, harm, and psychological violence | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Why Language Is Cool

Words are as close to immortality as you'll ever get | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

I'm Part of the 0.1 Percent and I Want a Wealth Tax

In the face of rising inequality, we need to elect politicians who will tax the rich | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago

Political Polls Are Flawed. Can AI Fix Them?

Polls are a key source of information. But the process is outdated and the results are often inaccurate | Continue reading


@thewalrus.ca | 4 years ago