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20 Articles

The Metal Issue

Editor-in-Chief Corinne Iozzio Design Director Russ Smith Executive Editor Rachel Feltman Managing Editor, PopSci+ Jean McKenna Deputy Editor Purbita Saha Managing Editor, PopSci.com Marina Galperina DIY Editor John Kennedy Technology Editor Rob Verger Features Editor Susan Murcko Social Media Editor Chelsey Coombs Engagement Editor Ryan Perry Digital Edition Editor Ben Guarino Associate Editors Jessica Boddy, Sandra Gutierrez G., Lauren J. Young Staff Writer Philip Kiefer Assistant Editors Charlotte Hu, Sara Kiley Watson Copy Editor S.B. Kleinman Researchers Stephanie Abramson, Cadence Bambenek, Jake Bittle, Diane Kelly, Alex Schwartz, Carolyn Shea Interns Maggie Galloway, Shi En Kim Executive Editor, Gear & Reviews Stan Horaczek Reviews Editor Mike Epstein Associate Managing Editor Tony Ware ART AND PRODUCTION Photography Director John Toolan Production Manager Glenn Orzepowski CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Brooke Borel, Kat Eschner, Tom Foster, William Gurstelle, Gregory Mone, Sarah Scoles, P.W. Singer, Nick Stockton, James Vlahos OPERATIONS General Manager Adam Morath Chief Executive Officer Lance Johnson Chief Operating Officer Alex Vargas Chief Revenue Officer…

The Metal Issue

The story of us

I’VE BEEN somewhat dreading picking a theme for this issue, the 150th-anniversary edition of PopSci, almost since the day I took the chair as editor-in-chief a little more than two years ago. How could one hope to encapsulate a history so deep and broad as to be punctuated by the earliest telephones, the development of the polio vaccine, and the rollout of WiFi? Sure, all these things—and the literal thousands of other inventions that have appeared in our pages—have common threads in research and innovation, but words like that are the low-hanging fruit. They’re our DNA, as opposed to a discrete thought. What could possibly bring all this to a head in a tangible way? The answer, oddly enough, was a theme the editors have batted around for years: metal. Eras of…

The story of us

Could plant-based ‘cyborgs’ help prevent environmental disaster?

WHEN ILLUMINATED by magenta and blue grow lights, Harpreet Sareen’s mini greenhouse looks like almost any other indoor gardening setup in New York City. But when the interaction designer switches the bulbs off to pitch the lab into darkness, a soft red glow persists. Nanosensors flow through the veins of a peace lily, allowing its broad leaf to fluoresce. The beacon fades over the course of a couple of hours, but this is by design: The dying light signals that its host is taking in toxic lead. The glowing lily is one of Sareen’s botanical “cyborgs”—vegetation he biohacks to serve as environmental watchdogs. Plants, he explains, are natural sentinels. When they absorb nutrients through their roots, they also sop up low concentrations of pollutants. “They are automatic absorbers or scrubbers of…

Could plant-based ‘cyborgs’ help prevent environmental disaster?

How to master cooking with metal

WHEN METALS first entered West Asian and Eastern Mediterranean kitchens in the form of bronze knives and copper cauldrons, only the wealthy could afford these tools. Today, such cookware and cutlery are staples—but with widespread use come common misconceptions. Microwaving metal is dangerous: FALSE (in some cases) If you’re wondering why you hear a loud zap when electromagnetic radiation hits a stainless-steel fork, know that it’s the shape, not the material, that’s the problem. Microwaves heat up food by vibrating water molecules, but if you raise the temperature on a knife or fork, the loose electrons on the metal will get stirred up, accumulating on sharp edges and potentially producing sparks. Set a spoon on the turntable instead, and the energy will disperse, resulting in nothing but a scalding utensil. Soap ruins cast-iron…

How to master cooking with metal

Why do people still wear braces?

WE’VE BEEN using metal to fine-tune our smiles since ancient times. In Egypt, archaeologists have found evidence of gold wires attached to teeth dating from as early as 2500 BCE. But it wasn’t until the 19th and early 20th centuries that orthodontic innovation picked up speed. In 1928, the American dentist Edward Angle published a series of articles describing what came to be known as the “edgewise appliance.” It had the same fundamentals as the braces used today but was much clunkier, with wide metal bands wrapped around each tooth. Despite newer, gentler options, like plastic aligners, many orthodontists still choose versions of this tough hardware to capitalize on metal’s chomper-pulling power. Modern braces consist of three main parts: brackets, archwires, and ligatures. Orthodontists glue the rectangular brackets, usually metal, to each…

Why do people still wear braces?

Will the US ever ditch coins?

ON ANY GIVEN WEEKDAY, the United States Mint can churn out almost 126.4 million pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, 50-cent pieces, and gold dollars from its presses in Denver and Philadelphia. Giant “cookie cutters” punch blanks out of 1,500-foot-long sheets of copper, nickel, and other metals. The discs are then heated, washed with citric acid and anti-tarnishing agents, and struck with presidential silhouettes. Despite seismic shifts in the very nature of money, the 230-year-old operation will keep on pumping fresh coins into circulation this way. Digital currency is more popular than ever, and countries around the world have unveiled bold plans for centralized electronic banks. But the alternatives won’t make physical cash go extinct, at least in the US. The total volume of hard currency in national circulation, including pennies and nickels…

Will the US ever ditch coins?

Why haven’t we gotten rid of lead?

IN THE 1920S, the National Lead Company released a kids’ coloring book to promote its array of vibrant, metal-filled paints. On the cover, its smiling Dutch Boy mascot sits atop a headless lead horse with a can of the brand’s signature white varnish. This was a common sight in 20th-century America, when lead could be found everywhere: In pipes bringing once-clean water to cities and towns. In paints that produced brighter colors and dried faster. In gas, to help the fuel combust more evenly in car engines. In plastic toys, to make them more flexible and resistant to heat. Even after physicians publicized the harms it posed to workers and children during the Industrial Revolution, the heavy metal was considered a versatile material. The US didn’t clamp down on its use…

Why haven’t we gotten rid of lead?

What makes certain metals remarkable?

AS A HARD, shiny, and tough-to-melt bunch, metals are desirable as jewelry, commodities, and occasionally nutrients. Despite their common characteristics, many of them boast unique abilities. Let’s take a tour of some of the most extreme substances on the periodic table. Densest: Osmium Element No. 76 is the heavyweight champion of Earth’s natural materials. It’s twice as dense as lead and has a jam-packed atomic structure and strong bonds that allow it to cram molecules together. Durable and stiffer than diamond, osmium makes for excellent pen nibs and record player needles. Rarest: Rhodium The world’s rarest—and unsurprisingly priciest—nonradioactive metal accounts for less than one part per 200 million of the planet’s crust and can cost up to 18 times as much as platinum. Each year, 66,000 pounds of No. 45 get turned into catalytic…

What makes certain metals remarkable?

Should participation trophies even exist?

AT THE END of many sports tournaments and spelling bees, all the contestants are honored for their effort—even the kid who sat in the outfield picking dandelions or got tongue-tied at the mic. But in a world where not everyone can be a winner, does getting a consolation prize actually boost a child’s self-esteem? Participation awards have been around for at least 100 years, but lately they have come under fire—perhaps most notably when Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison returned his sons’ trophies in 2015—for creating entitled youth who lack drive. Yet that’s exactly the opposite of what these medals do for little ones, says Illinois-based psychologist and parenting coach Emily Pagone. When toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners compete, they don’t know the expectations adults have for them, Pagone says. Offering them a…

Should participation trophies even exist?

DEEP WITHIN the Salmon-Challis National Forest of central Idaho, the remnants of the Blackbird Mine lie among 830 acres of steep-walled canyons thick with soaring conifers. Dirt roads slash through patches of forest, and a 12-acre open pit, roughly the size of nine football fields, remains as a reminder of a bygone era. Abandoned tunnels snake beneath a retaining pool that brims with a watery sludge of metallic deposits. For several decades in the middle of the 20th century, Blackbird was the primary US producer of cobalt, a metal essential in the manufacture of Cold War–era jet engines. After years of on-again, off-again operations, the site closed in 1982, when the price of cobalt dropped too low for the operation to be profitable. Today, the shuttered mine constitutes a 10,000-plus-acre Superfund…

ONE OF technology’s greatest inventions began with a dispute between two Italians over frog legs. In 1800, scientists the world over were fascinated by electricity. Practical applications, however, were elusive, mainly because no one could figure out how to generate continuous current. At the time, physicist Alessandro Volta stood athwart Luigi Galvani, a physician-scientist who studied frogs—specifically, dissected legs still attached to their spinal cords and mounted on brass or iron hooks. Galvani noticed that when he touched a probe made of a different metal to the legs, they twitched. Convinced the muscles were generating the sensation, Galvani dubbed his find animal electricity. Volta argued the amphibians’ legs were not generating the buzz but reacting to current produced by opposing metals. To prove it, he built a stack of alternating metal wafers…

IN LATE OCTOBER 2019, a fire broke out at a recycling facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. The blaze consumed a 40,000-square-foot site, and 60-mile-per-hour winds blew a massive smoke plume across a nearby highway, forcing local officials to close the road. It took firefighters until the next day to extinguish the flames. In the aftermath, the company that operated the site had to suspend collection in nearby cities; the scorched compound had been equipped to handle 85,000 tons of waste a year, and now that junk had nowhere to go except a landfill. The culprit? A lithium-ion battery like the ones found in phones and laptops. While these hyperefficient cells are generally safe, they continue to store volatile energy even after they die, which means that careless disposal can cause explosions and…

SHORTLY AFTER 1 a.m. on February 8, 1969, a bluish-white fireball streaked across the sky above the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. A meteor getting sucked into Earth’s gravity had exploded in the atmosphere. Scorched rocks rained over a 200-square-mile area around Pueblito de Allende in Chihuahua, where locals picked up the first bits of debris. A scavenger hunt began immediately. Kids and other residents used plastic candy bags to pick up meteorites on the sides of highways, near houses, in bean fields. Scientists also descended on the cactus-dotted chaparral landscape. NASA even sent researchers; they were preparing for the upcoming Apollo 11 mission to the moon and treated the crash like a dress rehearsal for studying lunar samples. In the first few months after the fall, teams discovered…

BEFORE SUBMARINES can carry out their stealthy jobs beneath the waves, they begin their lives in pieces on land. The newest group of American nuclear-powered attack submarines is the Virginia class, also known as SSN-774, a collection of underwater ships that stretch 377 feet long. Their mission? To conduct surveillance, fight other vessels, and rarely, if needed, launch conventional cruise missiles at terrestrial targets. Their maximum diving depth? That’s a secret. Their top speed? Ditto. What we do know is that each of these submersibles will protect a complement of sailors from the ocean’s incredible pressure—and from the nuclear reactor contained within, which powers everything from the propulsion system to the lights by heating water into steam. For workers at Electric Boat, an arm of General Dynamics responsible for many of…

TO THE UNINITIATED, metal music—especially its more extreme forms like death metal and grindcore—sounds like a melody penned by an angry caveman. It’s punishing, chaotic, brutal, aggressive, cacophonous. But as with the concept of “caveman” itself, recent research has built up a much more nuanced picture of the genre. Scholars and fans alike are now exploring its role in emotional regulation—and its potential to help us survive impending doom. A bit ambitious? Perhaps. But metal has always been brash. WHAT MAKES A SONG METAL? Metal emerged as a genre distinct from rock in the early 1970s, as artists pushed to create heavier music. According to Zett, a formally trained musician and the guitarist in black/thrash band Kömmand, “First and foremost, metal has to have distorted guitars. It also usually has riffs—repeating cycles…

It’s in the can

THE ENGINEERS in bunny suits, hairnets, and masks stand around a vertical white dish about 6 feet tall—their clean-room attire preventing any biological sloughing from contaminating the equipment. From the dish’s edges, articulated black arms extend outward, connecting it to an adjacent metal cylinder. On its own, each part could be mistaken for a UFO. And indeed, they are destined for a life beyond Earth: Next year, they will shoot to orbit as part of a larger satellite called the Weather System Follow-on–Microwave (or WSF-M). The dish—a sophisticated antenna—will catch faint microwaves emitted by Earth, whose undulating characteristics reveal weather conditions below. A yellow crane looms over the team, and photons from fluorescent lights bathe the whole room in white. Preparing to test the mechanical arms’ mobility, the engineers cross their own,…

It’s in the can

Facial reconstruction

BIG-HEADED DRIVERS take more abuse than any other club in a golfer’s bag: Their faces whack the ball at roughly 30,000 G’s. That’s enough force to obliterate even the fanciest carbon fiber, a material that—owing to its strength and lightness—has permeated other parts of driver heads over the last two decades. Faces that self-destruct in testing, however, have been enough to send manufacturers running back to titanium models, which have been the standard since the early ’90s. With its new Stealth driver, TaylorMade, the company that first ditched classic wooden heads for steel ones in 1979, has created a light carbon face durable enough to withstand thousands of strokes while delivering more ball speed—and longer drives. Titanium has long been a go-to for very good reasons. It offers one of the…

Facial reconstruction

IF YOU need proof that a single-walled container can’t keep a drink cool, just look to the humble aluminum can, which lets your soda get lukewarm before the burgers need flipping. Dual-walled stainless-steel bottles trap a pocket of air between their inner and outer layers to provide the insulation necessary to keep a beverage brain-freeze-level cold even after hours in the hot sun. We tested some of the most popular models to see which ones deserve the honor of holding your Gatorade. METHODOLOGY We tested the 32-ounce variety of six popular bottles. That much liquid is a kind of Goldilocks for hydration: It takes long enough to consume that holding temps steady really matters, but the bottle isn’t so large that carrying it around counts as a workout in and of itself. Each…

WHETHER IT’S relentless thrash metal or brassy jazz, every musical genre deserves to be played loud enough to make your neighbors either join the party or call in a noise complaint. UE HYPERBOOM At 13 pounds, this 14-inch-tall musical monolith boasts an IPX4 splashproof rating, which means it’s tough enough to survive any cocktail-related mishaps. Its grilles conceal two woofers and a pair of tweeters. Its real power, though, comes from structures called passive radiators, which produce floor-shaking bass. UE clearly wasn’t too concerned with the device’s heft, so there’s enough battery packed inside to provide a full 24 hours of playback on a single charge—as long as you keep the volume at a reasonable level. ANKER SOUNDCORE RAVE Two formidable 5.25-inch woofers and a pair of tweeters allow this 21-pound speaker to hit…

BEFORE PHYSICISTS began to grok the laws of thermodynamics in the mid-1800s, inventors, lured by the idea of perpetual motion, sought to exploit the movement of heat. Alongside earnest innovators, hucksters filled the scientific void. Such was the case of Charles Redheffer, a self-proclaimed inventor who posted up in Philadelphia and New York City in 1812 to sell tickets to peep his infinitely moving machine, later revealed to be operated by an old man turning a crank in a hidden loft. Even after thermodynamics exposed all the frauds, the notion of free work refused to die. In 1911, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a Dutch physicist, discovered that electricity would infinitely flow through mercury chilled to −452° Fahrenheit, near absolute zero. Perpetual motion was back! This time cloaked in superconductive metal. It would take…

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