Finland topped the World Happiness Report for the fourth year in a row, followed closely by Denmark, Switzerland, and Iceland.
Lyndsey Matthews - AFAR
The 10 happiest countries in the world, according to the 2021 World Happiness Report:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. The Netherlands
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Luxembourg
9. New Zealand
10. Austria
A cyclist on the English landscape
Grounded by the pandemic, a travel photographer spent the year pedaling the roads around his home, resulting in a series of poetic self-portraits.
Roff Smith - NYT
The weird science of loneliness explains why lockdown sucked
Social isolation is linked to poorer physical and mental health, but we don't know why. Now we’re starting to understand what loneliness does to our brains.
Wired
The race for the ‘fastest known time’
Last year, as coronavirus spread and marathons and other long-distance events were cancelled, runners pivoted to a different type of challenge — racing against the clock rather than elbow-to-elbow with rivals, a virtual contest yet completed in a very real world of rain-lashed hillsides and knee-jarring trails. More than 4,500 such records, known as “fastest known times”, were set around the world in 2020. According to fastestknowntime.com, the data-rich US website that has become the biggest register for these niche feats, it was a 350 per cent increase from 2019.
Tom Wilson - FT