Our favourites this week

101 reasons to cry In this excerpt from Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger, Marissa Korbel uses the simple chemistry of tears to explore the expectations of how girls and women express rage. Over 51% of women have experienced angry tears, compared to only 2% of men. When I read this, coupled with her list of things that have made her cry – queues in a supermarket, the 2016 elections, hunger – I had a better understanding of several perplexing moments in my relationship with my (non-angry-crying, male) partner. (Imogen Champagne, engagement editor) Guernica: Why we cry when we’re angry (Reading time: 9 minutes)
The hidden beauty inside and all around us Part of an ongoing YouTube series titled ‘Journey to the Microcosmos’, this is a slow, relaxing, 11-minute voyage through colourful microscopic worlds, featuring peculiar creatures and their mechanisms for survival. Softly narrated by Hank Green, it is an intimate look at an invisible but ubiquitous reality. (Afonso Gonsalves, editorial designer) Journey to the microcosmos: Mysterious jiggly crystals and other intercellular structures (Watching time: 11 minutes)
Little understood, yet full of intrigue: The story of the Haitian Revolution Three of my passions come together perfectly in my recommendation this week: podcasts, history, and untold stories. I was introduced to the Revolutions podcast by a friend who insisted I start with the series on the Haitian revolution and he was right. It’s brilliant. The French colony of Saint-Domingue was the single most lucrative colony in the New World and the story of its revolution makes for fascinating listening. What Revolutions lacks in production value, host Mike Duncan more than makes up for in research, clarity and storytelling. (Eliza Anyangwe, managing editor) Revolutions podcast: Saint-Domingue (Listening time: 37 minutes)

The best of The Correspondent

A half-covered statue being restored in Athens in front of a government building. An Athenian remedy: the rise, fall, and possible rebirth of democracy Governments chosen by elections face profound challenges the world over, including in Greece, the birthplace of democracy. So where better to look for potential solutions than modern-day Athens? Read Patrick Chalmers’ article here Banking on AI to fix all our problems? Hate to disappoint you Three problems with the idea that AI is going to change our lives: we don’t know what it is, it isn’t inevitable, and it’s not a goal in itself. Read Sanne Blauw’s column here An abstract illustration in dark purples. In the centre is a man standing in a pool of dark water, head bowed. The shape around him is an upside down head. To his left is a hand holding a card with a face on it, and on the right an eye, and feet in a bathtub. Can guilt and shame ever be positive? Few emotions are as inseparably fused with what it means to be human. We need to understand both better. Read Tanmoy Goswami’s explainer here