The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We asked some of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2019, and what were the least?
Hayden Higgins
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
We asked more than two dozen of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of 2018, and what were the least?
The Year That Was and Wasn’t
Yes, 2017 went off the rails. But what pushed it? We asked 29 of our favorite journalists, writers, and thinkers: What were the most important events of the past 12 months, and what were the least?
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends
Trump’s assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. The Waters of the United States rule was created after the Obama Administration shifted through more than a thousand scientific papers to identify which streams, creeks, and wetlands were relevant to environmental health. The rule was lauded as a big
The future of protein will not include animal meat
Chirping crickets are sustainable, but not that protein-rich. There’s a lot of buzz around insect-based protein these days. You can find pasta sauces like One Hop in many gourmet grocery sources, substituting crickets or mealworm for beef to make bolognese. Paleo dieters are intrigued. Lucky Peach says
When scientists discover habitable new planets, they raise old hopes for extraterrestrial life
Almost as soon as astronomers turned their search towards small stars, they found a bounty of Earth-sized planets. Last May, astronomers announced that they’d found three planets orbiting a small, cool star situated near Aquarius, 40 light-years away from Earth. They doubled down on their announcement yesterday
Net neutrality evens the playing field—but under Trump, the web will favor big business
In advance of a full repeal, Trump’s FCC is undermining net neutrality. The FCC will have to vote, but with the board’s two top Democrats gone, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that net neutrality’s days are numbered. They’ve already dropped inquiries into the practice of
How to grasp the insane dance that is quantum entanglement
Here’s the simplest explanation for what you’re seeing that we could find: When we measure both [entangled] members for color, or both members for shape, we find that the results always agree. Thus if we find that one is red, and later measure the color of the other,
The Oroville disaster represents a big dam problem
Engineers and environmentalists saw issues coming. Now a “nightmare scenario” is in play. “It worked fine until it had to be used, in which case it didn’t work so well.” Regarding the Oroville disaster, California water districts refused to pay the cost it would take to pave the spillway;
The terrorists America should fear most are white dudes
White supremacists operate at ease in positions of authority within law enforcement and defense. After a 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security identified right-wing terrorism as a growing threat, Tea Party backlash put the issue on the back burner. But the white terrorists didn’t go away.