The West Antarctic Ice Sheet Is MeltingOur oceans are rising. As the use of hydrocarbons skyrockets, waters around the world are getting hotter, and warm subsurface water is washing into Antarctica's massive western glaciers, causing them to retreat and break off. Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of its freshwater, so if even a small fraction of the ice sheet in Antarctica melts, the resulting sea-level rise will completely remap the world as we know it. In the past decade, the melt rate of some of the continent's most significant glaciers has tripled. VICE co-founder Shane Smith traveled to the bottom of the world to investigate the instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and to see firsthand how much it's melting.
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The 18-Year-Old Basketball PhenomLast summer, 18-year-old basketball phenom Emmanuel Mudiay made the unconventional decision to forego college entirely and accept a one-year, $1.2 million contract to play for the Guangdong Southern Tigers in China. His path from the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo to stardom at a Texas high school was certainly unique, and his decision to go pro could change the way the world thinks about amateurism and the NCAA. How is he dealing with the pressure and expectations that come with a high-profile sports contract? How is he doing after an ankle injury derailed his season? We went to Dongguan to find out and followed Mudiay as he practiced with his teammates, checked out the local cuisine, and got hit on by girls who wanted his autograph.Watch the documentary, coming soon to VICESports.com.
A Country Feast in QuebecIn our latest episode of Keep It Canada, we sent Chef Matty Matheson to rural Quebec, where he hooked up with the country's coolest purveyor of rare vegetables and decadent maple syrup: Société-Original. Co-owner Cyril Gonzales showed Matty where to find the freshest honey, the best foraged vegetables, and the happiest pig farm in the province. Matty also went boating with Charles-Antoine Crête and Emma Cardarelli, two of our favorite chefs in Montreal. They helped Matty catch his first fish, which ended up as someone's dinner at Cardarelli's restaurant, Nora Gray, that night. The three of them then went skeet-shooting, because why not? The adventure ended with a cookout at a chalet, where Matty whipped up tourtière, whelk pie, and more. It's a good one.
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A Drug That Could Stop the AIDS EpidemicTruvada is an antiretroviral drug that has been used for years to treat HIV-positive patients, and in 2012 it became the first drug approved to prevent HIV infection. By taking Truvada daily, an HIV-negative person will significantly lower his or her risk of contracting the illness, even if he or she has sex with an HIV-positive person without using a condom. For the first time in the history of HIV and AIDS, the epidemic may have an end in sight. But Truvada is not without controversy, and naysayers warn that the drug will usher in a new era of sexual recklessness and sexually transmitted infections. Could Truvada really mean the eradication of the virus? We explored the vast implications of the Truvada revolution in the first state to commit itself to ending the epidemic: New York.Watch the doc this month on VICE.com.
The Price of ElectricityCoal ash is what's left over when we burn coal for electricity. It contains some of the world's worst carcinogens, and the EPA's most recent count puts the amount of coal ash produced in a year at 110 million tons. Coal ash is stored in almost every state in the US, sometimes literally in people's backyards. With very little oversight in place, these storage sites have been known to leak toxic chemicals into nearby communities, contaminating drinking water and making people sick. We went to North Carolina and Pennsylvania to meet people who've been gravely affected by this dangerous waste product. We also met Hartwell Carson of the Waterkeeper Alliance, who said, "The problem with burning coal as an electricity source is that if you continue to burn coal you're always going to produce a toxic byproduct, which is coal ash."Watch Toxic: Coal Ash now on VICENews.com.