The Beachcomber offers this weekly collection of stories from everywhere but Washington D.C., for readers looking to climb out of the rabbit hole for a moment and reconnect to the world.

Special on the menu this week: Two week’s worth of OTR for the price of one and a lot of long reads.

CRIME DOESN’T PAY, BUT WELL-INTENTIONED DISOBEDIENCE MIGHT

Massachusetts: MIT’s media lab has created an award for “respsonsible” disobedience. In July, the institution will give $250,000 a living individual or group “that has engaged in extraordinary disobedience for the benefit of society.” The purpose of creating the award is to generate awareness and support for disbedience work being done around the world, as well as to promote role models for younger generations. To be considered for the award, the nominees’ work must ahere to a key set of principles that includes non-violence, creativity, courage and responsibility. On its website, the lab cites examples of disobedient historical figures that it considers role models, including Galileo, Harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Mark Felt (aka Deep Throat) and “Tank Man” from Tiananmen Square.

WILL PLAYING GAMES MAKE YOU A BETTER SPY? THE CIA THINKS SO, AND THEY DON’T ALWAYS MIND IF YOU CHEAT.

Austin, TX: Ars Technica offers this interesting peak into what the CIA was revealing about its training methods to South by Southwest attendees this year, and why sometimes cheating is great.

SHOULD THEY STAY OR SHOULD THEY GO?

Scotland: Doesn’t look like Scotland will be able to make a decision on its independence any time soon with last week’s emphatic “no” from U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, on its call to hold another independence referendum in the fall of 2018 or spring of 2019. Sean Connery’s homeland voted to stay a part of the U.K. with a vote held in 2014, but Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon believes that the country should vote again, given the results of last year’s Brexit vote — while Brexit received the majority of votes it needed to go ahead, Scotland overhelmingly voted for the U.K. to remain in the EU, 62 to 38 percent. The BBC has the story here.

SPEAKING OF BREXIT …

United Kingdom: P.M. Theresa May made it official this morning (March 29), with notice to the president of the European Council that the U.K. intends to leave the European Union. The two sides now have two years to come together on what the U.K.’s involvement in EU agreements (namely trade, immigration/migration) will look like post-split. Vox offers this explainer of the issues involved, where things stand and what’s at stake in the upcoming negotiations.

MEANWHILE, THE QUEEN IS ABOUT TO TURN 91

What happens when the queen dies? (Long read — or listen!)

London: Some might find it too morbid to talk about but as Queen Elizabeth approaches her 91st birthday on April 21, more and more her family, government and the media are making plans for how to proceed in the minutes, hours and days following her eventual, and inevitable, death. The Guardian offers this look into the history, and future, of handling the death of a monarch. If you’d rather listen, the audio version can be found here.

All part of the job, right?

TAKING “GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL” TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL

(Another long read)

Maine: In 1986, 20-year old Christopher Knight left his job, his family and society behind without so much as a word, choosing to live as a hermit in the Maine wilderness not to be seen or heard from again for 27 years. The Guardian offers another intriguing long-read with his story here.

SCIENCE!

CAN WE GET FRIES WITH THAT?

Bay Area, California: A meat-alternative company called Impossible Foods has created what they believe is a product that will revolutionize the food industry, and make a lot of cows happy: an alternative to ground beef that looks, tastes and smells just like the real thing, created in a neuroscience lab, without using animal products. Composed of wheat protein, coconut oil, potatoes and heme — an iron-containing compound that looks and tastes like blood, but is also found in plants — the faux beef product will be incorporated into restaurant menus across the country soon. Quartz brings us this video-supported story.

COLLISION COURSE (Guess what? It’s a long read)

Hong Kong: Twenty years since Britain handed Hong Kong back over to China, tensions are on the rise between the liberal city-state and its authoritarian mainland overseer. Howard French writes for The Guardian about mysterious, and likely politically motivated kidnappings and legislative tampering adding fuel to a pervasive pessimism amongst the city’s residents regarding the continued viability the “one country, two systems” agreement with Beijing.

MORE SCIENCE!

SPINACH WANTS TO MEND YOUR BROKEN HEART. LITERALLY.

Worcester, Massachusetts: Scientists at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have created a mini-version of a working human heart using spinach leaves. We couldn’t have made this one up if we tried. National Geographic has the incredible details here.

CSI: COPPER-AGE COLD CASE

Bolzano, Italy: Remember “Ötzi,” the 5,000 (ish) year-old mummified Iceman discovered by hikers in the Italian Alps in 1991? A Munich police inspector was asked to give him the CSI treatment and pieced together a likley picture of Ötzi’s last couple of days, right up to his murder 10,500 feet up in the mountains between Italy and Austria.