Oil Sands Shutting Down as Wildfires Head North: Here’s What’s Happening Today

The Daily 5 is Sharp’s essential reading list for what’s happening in the world today. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Sharp Insider newsletter to stay up to date.

Here’s what we’re reading:

1. The fires wage on

“The oil industry has shifted quickly into protective mode as the wild fires that devastated parts of Fort McMurray move rapidly in the direction of their oil sands facilities to the north.”

2. “Doctors with enemies”

Last October an American gunship took aim at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. For half an hour, the gunship rained bullets and incendiary rounds onto the facility, eventually setting it ablaze. The US military released its investigation into the assault last month and largely absolved itself of any wrongdoing.

In a story about America’s complex relationship with the Afghan government and the fight against the Taliban, Canadian Matthieu Atkins examines just what happened that night. Things are definitely not what they seem.

3. Did researchers just solve world hunger?

“Biologists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have come up with a new agricultural technique which they say increases their crop yields by an incredible 50 per cent. The key, they say, lies in figuring out how to use an existing genetic mutation that’s been creating some really weird-looking ears of corn.”

4. The coming horror of virtual reality

As the VR industry continues to come into its own, scientists and creators have begun to explore the medium’s spell over the human psyche. For instance, VR is proving to be a powerful PTSD treatment.

But there remains a dark side to all this, Simon Parkin writes for the New Yorker. As these platforms deliver experiences so real and terrifying, there’s the possibility they could incur lasting psychological harm.

5. There’s no such thing as free will, lol

But according to the Atlantic, it’s probably for the best we keep on believing in it anyway.

From the latest issue: “Philosophers and theologians are used to talking about free will as if it is either on or off; as if our consciousness floats, like a ghost, entirely above the causal chain, or as if we roll through life like a rock down a hill. But there might be another way of looking at human agency.”