Although I am mentioning this book in the context of Halloween, it might also be a holiday gift idea for the philosophically inclined teen on your list. The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammad considers a range of philosophical questions that arise from zombies, vampires, and the undead: "Is a zombie simply someone with a brain but without a mind? Are some of the people around us undead, and how could we tell? Can the undead be held responsible for what they do? Is it always morally OK to kill the undead? Served up in a witty, entertaining style, these and other provocative questions present philosophical arguments in terms accessible to all readers." smile.amazon.com/Undead-Philosophy-Chicken-Soup-Soulless/dp/B00D5KZSAE

The northeastern Indian state of Assam (shown in red on this map) has been in the news recently. Although Assam is famous for its tea and silk, more recently Assam has been in the news for its efforts to evict Muslim residents whose families arrived from neighboring Bangladesh any time in the last 50 years. High birth rates and land erosion from the Brahmaputra River, which runs east to west the length of Assam, has increased competition for land and given Assam's Hindu-nationalist BJP government a pretext for taking action against Muslim settlers of Bangladeshi descent, most of whom were born in Assam. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/India_Assam_locator_map.svg/1574px-India_Assam_locator_map.svg.png

Want to practice your map-labeling skills? ThatQuiz has short map-labeling exercises for Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  ThatQuiz also has options to practice math, science, and foreign language vocabulary skills. www.thatquiz.org/

Atmospheric rivers -- narrow bands of moisture-laden air -- are ranked like hurricanes according to intensity.  This week northern California experienced a Category 5 atmospheric river, bringing mudslides, power outages, and extreme flooding to the region. On the plus side, the rain brought billions of gallons of water to depleted reservoirs. This map shows water levels in key California reservoirs (blue shows % of capacity; the red line shows historical average): www.sfchronicle.com/climate/article/Charts-show-where-California-reservoir-totals-16566209.php

Did China recently test a nuclear-capable hypersonic glider? China says no, but the U.S. and other observers say yes.  Either way, China, the U.S., and Russia are racing to develop hypersonic glider technology that allows a missile to achieve orbit around the earth but then, unlike ICBMs which follow a predictable ballistics trajectory on return, can be maneuvered to surprise an enemy target, making it difficult to anticipate, detect, or defend against.  This article from Science (a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) looks at some of the issues surrounding hypersonic missile technology: www.science.org/content/article/national-pride-stake-russia-china-united-states-race-build-hypersonic-weapons

The world's tropical glaciers are melting away as air temperatures heat up. This article from Atlas Obscura introduces what was once the world's highest ski resort, with an elevation higher than Mount Everest's base camp.  Chacaltaya Ski Resort, near La Paz, Bolivia, was closed in 2009 when the Andean glacier upon which it depended melted. www.atlasobscura.com/places/abandoned-chacaltaya-ski-resort

Lead service lines -- the pipes that carry water from the public water main to a building -- were installed in the U.S. as late as the 1980s, making them an ongoing, if silent, hazard to drinking water supplies. This map is based on recent survey work by the Natural Resources Defense Council but likely underestimates the problem significantly given that many states do not track the use of lead pipes. Illinois and Ohio reported the most lead service lines still in use. assets.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_content--retina/public/media-uploads/nrdc_edt_leadpipe_map_final_2.png

Do we have free will? And what are the implications of the question, anyway? This Aeon article presents a debate between contemporary philosophers Dan Dennett and Gregg Caruso: aeon.co/essays/on-free-will-daniel-dennett-and-gregg-caruso-go-head-to-head

Melbourne, Australia, just finished the world's longest COVID lockdown to date. This geo-graphic shows cumulative days of COVID lockdowns by various jurisdictions around the world: www.statista.com/chart/26023/areas-with-the-longest-cumulative-pandemic-lockdowns.  (It is expected that the emergence of the so-called Delta-plus variant in the UK may result in one or more of the UK's subdivisions passing Melbourne in the not-too-distant future.)

If you are interested in astronomy or know someone who is, this set of articles, curated by Pocket, provides a fresh look at each planet in our solar system, and beyond: getpocket.com/collections/one-great-article-about-every-planet-in-the-solar-system

Recent street battles in Beirut -- reportedly started when Christian militias fired on Shi'ite protesters, who then fired back -- brought Lebanon's complex religious geography back into the news. This map, based on voter registration data because Lebanon has not had an official census since 1932, illustrates the issue:
i.pinimg.com/originals/be/0f/96/be0f960be4f6f80b6dfec38eaea99ab6.jpg

As it is for real-world leaders, one of the most challenging things for students in my "Mission Possible: Global Issues, Leadership Choices" class is learning how to manage the economies of their imaginary countries. In China, hidden borrowing by local governments now totals more than half of China's GDP and exceeds the amount of official, on-the-books debt, according to a recent estimate by Goldman Sachs. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-29/china-hidden-local-government-debt-is-half-of-gdp-goldman-says

Released earlier this month, this animation illustrating comparative ocean depths is worth checking out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5C7sqVe2Vg

With Major League Baseball playoffs working their way to the World Series, sports geographer (and geography professor) Ted Goudge looked at which states produce the most MLB players: California is the #1 source of this year's professional baseball players, followed by the Dominican Republic, and Florida. (30% of current MLB players grew up outside the U.S.) www.kmaland.com/news/geography-with-goudge-mlb-players-2021/article_beade15c-25f6-11ec-8680-134d4c576c1a.html

High school students with an interest in philosophy are invited to submit articles to the new student philosophy journal Conundrum. Because each quarter has a theme, potential contributors should contact the editors for journal guidelines before submitting anything. www.conundrum.one/

The world's longest submarine power cable began operation earlier this month. The 450-mile cable between north England and west Norway is designed to help even out green power distribution, sending Norwegian hydropower to the UK and UK wind power to Norway, as needed. An even longer cable is currently in the works between Denmark and the UK. This map from the Financial Times (UK) shows the UK's current and planned underwater power cables. tinyurl.com/rw6um2b7

Going shopping for Halloween candy? This resource from Colorado Spring's Cheyenne Mountain Zoo explains the links between Halloween candy (and packaged foods in general), palm oil, economics, and deforestation. www.cmzoo.org/conservation/orangutans-palm-oil/  For those who want to convert the learning to action, the zoo also has an app -- search for "Sustainable Palm Oil Shopping" in your app store -- that allows shoppers to scan the UPC on a product to see if its palm oil is sustainably sourced and "orangutan friendly."

Carbon dioxide accounts for roughly half of the increase in global temperatures observed over the last 250 years. But methane -- a byproduct of agriculture, oil/gas production, and waste management practices -- accounts for nearly a quarter of the rise in global temperatures. This map from Bloomberg shows how the primary contributors of methane vary by country and region. (For more on this issue, including more maps and a look at the chemistry of CO2 vs. methane see the original article: www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-methane-impact-on-climate/)

What happens when scientific experimentation both furthers public health goals and potentially elevates public health risks? "Laboratories around the globe increasingly are experimenting with emerging viruses, sometimes giving them new capabilities, as they seek to identify dangerous ones and find ways to combat them. While the goal is to protect health, some of the projects carry the chance of a misstep that could unleash an epidemic, some scientists say. Experiments in the U.S. are reviewed in advance by researchers’ institutions or government funders, but risky projects can go forward without being subjected to the highest level of scrutiny, especially in some other countries. Some scientists and officials in the Biden administration are pushing for more oversight, globally, of risky bioresearch. ... Fewer than 5% of national governments provide oversight for research on dangerous pathogens, according to the Global Health Security Index, a project of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization focused on reducing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."
www.wsj.com/articles/since-covid-19-hit-research-on-viruses-has-exploded-is-it-safe-11632496218

In this article from Geographical (UK), geography writer Tim Marshall looks at the possible routes Afghans will take to leave the country: geographical.co.uk/geopolitics/hotspot/item/4151-geopolitical-hotspot-escaping-afghanistan

Today is celebrated as Indigenous Peoples' Day in a growing number of U.S. communities. This map shows the region of the Great Lakes -- or, as the indigenous residents referred to them, the Five Freshwater Seas -- in Ojibwe.  The map puts east at the top rather than north to reflect the traditional east-first orientation of the Anishinaabe. decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/the-great-lakes-in-ojibwe-v2/

Hannah Arendt is perhaps most famous for her observation about "the banality of evil." This piece from Aeon explores Arendt's view that not only does hope exist alongside evil, hope is an obstacle to action because it blinds us to reality:

"Arendt was never given to hopeful thinking. ... Throughout much of her work, she argues that hope is a dangerous barrier to acting courageously in dark times. ... Arendt’s most devastating account of hope appears in her essay ‘The Destruction of Six Million’ (1964) published by Jewish World. Arendt was asked to answer two questions. The first was why the world remained silent as Hitler slaughtered the Jewish people, and whether or not Nazism had its roots in European humanism. The second was about the sources of helplessness among the Jewish people. To the first question, Arendt responded that ‘the world did not keep silent; but apart from not keeping silent, the world did nothing.’ People had the audacity to express feelings of horror, shock and indignation, while doing nothing. This was not a failure of European humanism, she argued, which was unprepared for the emergence of totalitarianism, but of European liberalism, socialism not excluded. Listening to Beethoven and translating German into classical Greek was not what caused the intelligentsia to go along with the Nazification of social, cultural, academic and political institutions. It was an ‘unwillingness to face realities’ and it was a desire ‘to escape into some fool’s paradise of firmly held ideological convictions when confronted with facts’. ... It was holding on to hope, Arendt argued, that rendered so many helpless. It was hope that destroyed humanity by turning people away from the world in front of them. It was hope that prevented people from acting courageously in dark times. ... Caught between fear and ‘feverish hope’, the inmates in the [Warsaw] ghetto were paralysed. ... Only when they gave up hope and let go of fear, Arendt argues, did they realise that ‘armed resistance was the only moral and political way out’."
aeon.co/essays/for-arendt-hope-in-dark-times-is-no-match-for-action

A few months ago, the Chinese Communist party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding. This GIF maps the global spread, and decline, of Communism for a slightly different 100-year interval, from 1917 to 2017: www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/pvx2s5/rise_and_fall_of_communism/

The application for NSLI-Y is now open -- for Summer 2022 and the 2022-23 academic year. (Yes, this a program for those who plan ahead.) NSLI-Y is a U.S. State Department-funded program for high school students interested in studying a security language: Arabic, Bahasan Indonesian, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, and Turkish. Competitive admission, intensive study. This year's applications are due Nov. 4.  For my younger son, NSLI-Y was life changing (in a good way!). www.nsliforyouth.org/nsli-y/

Argentina recently released data showing that more than 40% of the country's population is living in poverty, with nearly 11% of the population classified as destitute (extreme poverty). The country had been in recession since 2018 and coronavirus-related shutdowns caused Argentina's GDP to sink an additional 9.9% from spring 2020 to spring 2021, devastating the country's middle class and youth. Income inequality has long had clear geographic patterns in Argentina, with the highest rates of poverty in the north and the lowest rates in and around Buenos Aires. www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/klpiuh/persistent_poverty_rates_in_argentina_by/