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Articles on Destruction

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A wooden effigy of a man is erected each year in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and later burned down. AP Photo/Ron Lewis

Burning Man highlights the primordial human need for ritual

In Nevada, people create a makeshift city toward the end of summer and later burn it down. What’s behind this event, and what makes it meaningful?
The Wall of Wind can create Category 5 hurricane winds for testing life-size structures. Margi Rentis/Florida International University

30 years after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida, researchers are using a ‘Wall of Wind’ to design safer homes – but storms are getting even more intense

The test facility in Miami helps building designers prevent future storm damage. With the warming climate intensifying hurricanes, engineers are planning a new one with 200 mph winds and storm surge.
There seems be an attractive quality to things that are ostensibly unhealthy or dangerous. Alisusha/Shutterstock.com

What’s behind our appetite for self-destruction?

Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud and cognitive scientists have all wrestled with the human tendency to behave in ways that are irrational and self-defeating.
Protesters carry placards as they take part in a recent service delivery protest in Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg. Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko

Protests soar amid unmet expectations in South Africa

Protests in South Africa against a lack of services, such as water and electricity, reached unprecedented levels in 2014. Many have been accompanied by violence and destruction of property.

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