There are a number of longstanding myths about money, and you probably believe some of them. It is commonly thought, for example, that the original money was made from precious metal. That it emerged from a market economy based on barter. That new wealth is still created purely through the market. That there is no magic money tree.

Ring any bells? In the latest in our new Insights long reads, Mary Mellor debunks these and other beliefs about money using lessons gathered from history, anthropology and sociology. Her alternative history of money reveals the fairytale nature of conventional economics – and particularly neoliberalism – which fundamentally misrepresent where money comes from. Her radical new perspective also offers hope: money originally served a social purpose, she writes, and can be redesigned to do so again.

More than 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster in Soviet Ukraine, we’re still discovering more about the impact of the fallout. But rarely have the details been pored over in such dramatic fashion as in the acclaimed HBO/Sky television series, Chernobyl. The drama is gripping, but Jim Smith, who has made many trips to the exclusion zone, offers ten examples of where the facts don’t match the fiction. In another dispatch from Chernobyl, Stuart Thompson explains why plants are more resilient to radioactivity than animals, despite the fact they can’t uproot and move away from the problem.

If you’re not sure what’s “peng” and what’s “dutty”, modern slang can sound fantastically outlandish. But it’s used by young people across the country – including those involved in gangs and violent crime. Rather than treating slang with suspicion, authorities would be better off sitting down with an Urban British English dictionary – or they risk alienating a whole generation, who want to be free to express their feelings, motivations and concerns in their own language.

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