Hair, With a Twist | Has Blast Fishing Met Its Match?

www.ozy.com [OZY.COM]( [VIEW ONLINE]( 10 MUST READS TODAY [Daily Dose]( Sunday Nov 10, 2019 1 [The New + the Next]( [The New + the Next]( [How a Tennis Racket for Hair Became a Multimillion-Dollar Business]( Entrepreneur Noel Durity is a grinder on a mission — to get your hair in shape easily. The bad news arrived via Instagram: Pirated versions of Noel Durity’s innovative Twist it Up comb were popping up in convenience stores. Most entrepreneurs would quickly seek legal advice, maybe write a strongly worded letter. Durity instead channeled Liam Neeson. “I decided to confront them,” he says. A solo tour to 100 stores in 24 cities — from New York down through the East Coast and ending in Texas — netted him 500 knockoffs of his device resembling a tennis racket to tease out Afro-centric hair. He also collected more than 40 invoices, a paper trail to the source of the knockoffs. For a budding businessman who looks in the mirror and sees a superhero, it was just another day at the office. To figure out Durity, 31, you have to go all the way back to the start, when he was born two and a half months premature — his extended hospital stay nearly bankrupting his family, which had no insurance. “He is my million-dollar baby,” says Durity’s mom, Cheryl. [READ MORE]( 2 [Fast Forward]( [Fast Forward]( [Has Deadly Blast Fishing Finally Met Its Match?]( The explosive practice is destroying Southeast Asian and African coral beds, but data is helping agencies fight back. When there’s an underwater explosion, “it feels like the entire ocean collapses on you,” longtime diver and environmentalist Terence Lim says. Diving in Malaysia’s waters for 25 years, he has felt the pressure waves from fishermen’s homemade bombs and seen how explosions turn once vibrant reefs into rubble. Though outlawed, this explosive fishing method is common in Southeast Asia and along the Tanzanian coast due to its extreme efficiency. Now, after decades of largely futile attempts to crack down on blast fishing, environmentalists and marine scientists are turning to what they believe could prove the missing link in their efforts: acoustic data. In Malaysia’s Sabah province, Lim and his fellow members of the Hong Kong-registered NGO Stop Fish Bombing have devised a way to record blasts up to 12 miles away. By placing hydrophones 2 to 8 meters underwater, attached to a boat or a pier, they record the blasts and through triangulation — cross-verification of data — they can pinpoint their location. [READ MORE]( 3 [Good Sh*t]( [Good Sh*t]( [Get the Royal Romantic Read Treatment]( Like the idea of lusty royal types sweeping mere mortals off their feet and into bed? Royal romances are for you. Start here. It was early 2019 when Casey McQuiston’s queer royal romance, aptly titled Red, White and Royal Blue, became an unexpected New York Times bestseller. In doing so, it made clear that while royal wedding fever may have died down, the thrill of reading a royal romance most definitely endures. But what’s the appeal of fantasizing about a system as colonial and imperialistic as the monarchy? “We love the idea of a prince falling for someone just like you or me,” with flaws and insecurities, says Melanie Summers, royal romance author and longtime royal watcher. “There’s something about it that makes us feel like anything is possible.” Romance writer Krista Lakes echoes this view: “Romance novels are opportunities to lead the lives we wish we could have, so royal romances are a great way to have that fantasy for a few hours.” [READ MORE]( 4 [Need to Know]( [Look Closer: At Play on a Winter Day … or a Planet in Peril?]( What looks like knee-deep snow is really an environmental nightmare. 5 [Opinion]( [Donald Dossier: Just a Couple of NYC Billionaires]( The mere fact that Michael Bloomberg is testing the presidential waters is a sign of Democratic panic. 6 [Fast Forward]( [A Stock Market Battle Bares Vietnam’s North-South Divisions]( The dilemma over where to locate a new stock exchange captures tensions rooted in postwar bitterness. 7 [Flashback]( [The ‘Nazi’ Boxer With a Golden Heart?]( Max Schmeling became a symbol. But the truth is more complex. 8 [Around the World]( [She Believes Trees Will Save Germany — If She Can Save the Trees]( Julia Klöckner, Germany's minister of food and agriculture, has her own way of tackling climate change. 9 [Good Sh*t]( [Solidarity Fridges: How French Firms Feed Their Neighbors for Free]( Les Frigos Solidaires found a way to cut food waste and hunger at once. 10 [Immodest proposal]( [It’s Time to Dole Out Punishments Based on Wealth and Life Expectancy]( A 10-year jail term for a 65-year-old isn’t the same as it is for a 20-year-old. You Should Know This [Unapologetic: Pro Indie Wrestling on Acid? Mike Young Says Hell Yes!]( OZY Media Mountain View, California 94040 This email was sent to {EMAIL} [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Read Online](