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Mess is more

Review: The new book by popular economist Tim Harford challenges the clean desk industrial complex and offers a humane ode to untidiness

Long

Going off track

In the 1980s, Britain pioneered futuristic levitating trains pushed by magnets. Now, despite gleaming maglev trains gliding around Asia, Britain's version has been left to waste. What went wrong?

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Is the party over?

After a year of shocks to democratic orthodoxy, what does the future hold for modern political parties? In new research for the think tank Compass, Indra Adnan looks at where we go from here

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Murder in virtual reality should be illegal

The possibility of building virtual worlds is exciting for filmmakers, but we must study the psychological impacts and consider the moral and legal implications, says Angela Buckingham

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How the UK passed the most invasive surveillance law in democratic history

The 'snooper's charter' lets authorities in the UK spy on almost every aspect of all of our lives, yet the law has passed with few headlines and little resistance

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Why the tough talk of Brexit negotiators is doomed to fail

Comment: When you draw red lines, what happens when you have to cross them?

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The former inmate whose startup lets prisoners stay connected

Frederick Hutson got the idea for his business venture while in prison: a service that allows inmates and their loved ones to stay in touch, and may even help to reduce recidivism. Since his release, the business has taken flight

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Lost utopias: how the world imagined its future

A photographer documents the dramatic structures and relics of World's Fair sites

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Dance moves: the parties and happy accidents that gave us house music

House began not from deliberate ideas or any theory, but through experiments, unusual collisions and the simple joy of playing records to people in clubs

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Let's be honest about the flaws of government transparency

Comment: Before we decide that open government information is an unquestioned good thing, we should consider its costs too, says Lee Drutman