Power causes brain damage

Number of words – 1,848 If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he’s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage? When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a congressional … Read more

The plant biome we know little about

Number of words – 1,064 In Corvallis, Oregon, Posy Busby works in a garden planted with 3,000 black cottonwood trees that represent 1,000 unique genetic specimens, each originally found somewhere on the West Coast of North America, from California to Canada. Cottonwoods are some of the fastest-growing trees in the world, and the garden looks … Read more

Why money managers are paid so much

Number of words – 906 Why do workers in the financial industry get paid so much? There are many possible explanations, none of them completely satisfying. The financial industry commands a much larger share of the U.S. economy than in the past, causing some to worry that the industry gets more money than its economic … Read more

Water that dissolves Iron

Number of words – 1,055 Hidden 1,000 metres under Mount Ikeno in Japan is a place that looks like a supervillain’s dream. Super-Kamiokande (or “Super-K” as it’s sometimes referred to) is a neutrino detector. Neutrinos are sub-atomic particles which travel through space and pass through solid matter as though it were air. Studying these particles … Read more

The History of Steel

Number of words – 5,176 The story of steel begins long before bridges, I-beams, and skyscrapers. It begins in the stars. Billions of years before humans walked the Earth—before the Earth even existed—blazing stars fused atoms into iron and carbon. Over countless cosmic explosions and rebirths, these materials found their way into asteroids and other … Read more

Space Laws

Number of words – 1,305 Most likely, this is the best-known picture of a flag ever taken: Buzz Aldrin standing next to the first U.S. flag planted on the Moon. For those who knew their world history, it also rang some alarm bells. Only less than a century ago, back on Earth, planting a national … Read more

Self driving cars

Number of words – 412 Zoox founders Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson say everyone else involved in the race to build a self-driving car is doing it wrong. Instead of retro-fitting existing cars with fancy sensors and smart software, they want to make an autonomous vehicle from the ground up. The one they’ve built is … Read more