Hacking the Planet
Some problems have easy solutions. If we feel sweaty, we’ll head for the shade. If our soup’s too hot,…
Writings
More than a signature
Three days before Christmas in 1995, Linda Horton, a medical researcher in Nashville, Tenn., was diagnosed with a large,…
Just Press Print
A person with a failing vital organ usually has only one treatment option: get a new one. But right now,…
Mussels’ sticky feet lead to applications
J. Herbert Waite was a graduate student in biochemistry in the 1970s when he began to wonder how mussels cling…
‘Print’ almost anything
Imagine having a printer hooked up to your computer that could make anything. Tired of your toothbrush? No problem. Print…
Patents for software?
AT SOME point in their career every mathematician comes up against the question, is mathematics invented or discovered? The…
Ahead of the wave
Bump a glass and any water inside might slop over the side. Splash in the bathtub and waves slosh.…
Foraging flights
First, he tracked basking sharks—filterfeeding leviathans that look like supersized great whites—in the coastal waters near Great Britain, and then…
Cutting Cancer’s Engine
Not every hypothesis in cancer research has the same staying power. Some emerge with fanfare and hype, only to fade…
Walking on Water
Gods in Ancient Egypt could do it; so allegedly could Buddha and Jesus. But for the rest of us lowly…