Five Great Reads: Gloria Steinem, Men's Therapy, and Slime Moulds

Every week, The Guardian picks five of its best stories from around the world. This week's list covers some of life's biggest questions: Can we live forever? Will nature survive climate change? What makes something intelligent? The stories also look at a famous feminist who recently passed away and at why men often leave therapy feeling sad instead of happy. There is something here for everyone who likes to think deeply about the world.

Gloria Steinem was a journalist, writer, and activist who spent her life fighting for women's rights. She spoke out against domestic violence, fought for women's reproductive rights, and inspired millions of people around the world. She died last week, and tributes have been pouring in from writers and readers everywhere. Many people are now asking what the feminist movement will look like without her leading voice.

Writer Rebecca Solnit noted that many people today have no idea how different women's lives were before the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then, women had far fewer legal rights and were often silenced in public life. Steinem helped change that by speaking up loudly and clearly for decades. One tribute called her 'the silence-breaker' and 'the truth-teller who had inspired millions of women around the world to find our voices and use them.' Her legacy lives on in the writers, activists, and everyday people she inspired.

Would you pay $200,000 to be frozen after you die, hoping to wake up in the future? That is exactly what one company in regional Australia is offering. Reporter Catie McLeod became the first journalist to visit the facility, which stores bodies in liquid nitrogen at -196°C. The containers are described as giant Thermos bottles that keep bodies extremely cold to prevent damage to cells.

When a person dies and chooses this option, their body goes through an eight-hour process. Special chemicals — similar to antifreeze — are pumped through the body to protect it from ice damage. However, most scientists are not convinced that bringing someone back to life is actually possible. Associate Professor Saffron Bryant, an expert in this field, says the idea of reviving a person's consciousness belongs more to the world of mysticism than to real science. For now, the dream of living forever remains just that — a dream.

Can animals and plants evolve fast enough to survive climate change? Scientists have long believed that survival is a race — only the strongest species make it. But a brand-new study in the Arctic suggests that species might survive better by working together rather than competing. Researchers are watching how organisms in Arctic streams respond to rising temperatures, and the results are surprising.

Senior scientist Linda Deegan from the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts says climate change is turning the natural world upside down. She believes, though, that if species can evolve together and form strong connections, they have a better chance of not just surviving — but thriving. This idea challenges what many people learned about Charles Darwin's theory of 'survival of the fittest.' Instead of every species for itself, nature might rely on teamwork. The findings give scientists cautious hope that ecosystems will not completely fall apart.

In 2010, scientists proved that a tiny, brainless organism called a slime mould could map out the entire Tokyo railway system — and even suggest improvements. This experiment became famous because the slime mould had no brain, no nervous system, and no obvious way to think. Yet it found the most efficient routes, just like a clever engineer might. Scientists have been arguing ever since about whether creatures like this can truly be called intelligent.

In another well-known test, a slime mould was placed in a maze and found the shortest path to food. Scientist Toshiyuki Nakagaki described a sense of wonder when watching the organism, carefully using words like 'intelligence,' 'learning,' and 'memory' to describe its behavior. These are big words that biologists do not use lightly. The central mystery is this: how can a single cell, with no brain at all, make decisions, remember things, and process information? Nobody has a clear answer yet, and that is what makes slime moulds so fascinating.

Many men walk into a therapist's office hoping to fix a problem — maybe they feel angry, lonely, or stuck. But psychotherapist Matthew Willner writes that most of his male clients leave sessions not with answers, but with grief. This seems strange at first, because grief means sadness and loss, not the solutions people came looking for. So why does sitting in that chair lead to tears instead of breakthroughs?

Willner explains that finding the root cause of unhappiness is hard, especially when you cannot name the moment things went wrong. Telling a man to 'just talk to someone' or 'it's OK to cry' can feel useless if he does not know why he feels bad in the first place. Instead of pushing men to fight their feelings, Willner encourages them to get curious about what they feel inside. He says men who turn toward their sadness — instead of running from it — often feel less controlled by those emotions over time. It is a small shift in thinking, but it can make a very big difference.