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23 Articles

Riding the Future

MY FATHER IN LAW has two abiding passions: new cars and new technology. These obsessions once collided (not literally, thank goodness) when I visited him in Florida a few years ago, and he showed of one of the new features of his latest ride. We were speeding down the highway somewhere between 65 and 70 when he suddenly took his hands of the wheel and let the car take over. I knew that a certain level of self-driving technology existed, of course, but it was my first time in a moving vehicle where my life actually relied on this upgrade. It took some getting used to, as I left fingernail marks on the passenger-side armrests and tapped the floor for a nonexistent brake. Then again, I’m the sort who still can’t…

Riding the Future

END DAYS (“How Will Life on Earth End?” Jan/Feb 2022) In “How Will Life on Earth End?” by Eric Betz, I was perplexed by the prediction that increased solar activity will break down atmospheric carbon dioxide, causing plants to die and oxygen production via photosynthesis to plummet. If solar activity increases enough to break down atmospheric CO2, wouldn’t that increase in solar activity kill off most of the plants and animals long before we need to worry about declining photosynthesis? Paul Humphreys ASSOCIATE EDITOR ALEX ORLANDO RESPONDS: Thanks for reaching out, Paul! The increased solar activity Eric refers to, known as luminosity, will first impact the surface of the planet, quickening the weathering of carbonite rocks like basalt and granite, which pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. But when CO2 concentrations start to…

(“Climate Chained,” May/Jun 2022) Your article about how global warming is causing sea levels to rise, endangering the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, speculates that the people of Tuvalu will someday have to abandon their islands and perhaps maintain a sense of “digital nationhood” while living elsewhere. But then there is this paragraph: “While sea level rise continues to threaten Tuvalu’s existence, not all of its islands have been impacted equally. Over the past four decades, only one of the country’s 101 islands have been entirely eroded, whereas 73 have seen a net increase in land mass.” How did that happen? And are any of those 73 islands habitable? Toby Katz ASSOCIATE EDITOR ALEX ORLANDO RESPONDS: This is a great question, Toby! The 2018 Nature Communications study we reference is part of a growing…

THE LATEST NEWS AND NOTES

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT Glowing eerily under a blue light, this stained skeleton of a clouded archerfish (Toxotes blythii) reveals unique biological structures with a highly targeted purpose: The animal’s blowpipe mechanism, paired with soft-tissue oral structures, allows it to strike down prey with ease. In a study published in Integrative Organismal Biology this April, researchers at the University of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History examined how different species of archerfish evolved to shoot water at small creatures on land, knocking them into the water for an easy meal. Beware! These expert sharpshooters, located in the fresh and brackish waters of Southeast Asia and Australia, are known to take aim at insects, lizards and even unsuspecting human passersby.…

THE LATEST NEWS AND NOTES

A Brief History of Bathing

FOR THE AVERAGE American, bathing is commonplace and expected. Natural as that fastidiousness may seem, it’s far from universal. Even in the developed Western world, routine bathing became a foregone conclusion only in the past century or so. From ancient Rome’s public baths to early-modern Europe’s water aversion to today’s ubiquity of in-home showers, our relationship with cleanliness is anything but static. MOST ANIMALS groom themselves in one fashion or another to avoid disease. Washing is, in one sense, an extension of that primordial practice. Perhaps this instinct guided the first human who bathed in a river or lake, or showered under a waterfall. But the historic record shows members of early civilizations immersing themselves in water with different intentions, often in social and ritual contexts. The most famous and best documented…

A Brief History of Bathing

HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY ANIMALS THAT GIVE GIFTS

WHILE YOU’RE thinking of the perfect gifts for your loved ones this holiday season, male scorpionflies are crafting the perfect spitballs for theirs. Though spitballs sound unappealing to us, the female scorpionfly — a tan, slender-bodied, winged insect less than an inch long — finds the nutrient-packed ball of saliva a tasty treat. In fact, while she eats the gooey goodness, she rewards the male with an opportunity to mate with her. Scorpionflies aren’t the only gift-giving animals besides humans; spiders, squid, snails, birds and many others strive to impress with presents. Most of the gifts traded among these species are nuptial gifts — that is, anything that’s exchanged during mating or courtship to boost the gifter’s chance at reproduction. Nuptial gifts range from prey skewered on twigs to proteins and hormones…

HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY ANIMALS THAT GIVE GIFTS

Airports Are Embracing Facial Recognition

NOBODY LOOKS forward to shuffling through a sluggish customs line when traveling. Now imagine gaining entry to another country within 15 seconds, no human interaction or physical documents required. This hypothetical already exists with the Smart Tunnel, which uses biometrics along with facial- and iris-recognition technology to verify passengers’ identities with 80 cameras, and then processes that data using artificial intelligence. Dubai International Airport piloted the Smart Tunnel in 2018 — the world’s first technology of its kind. Many travelers have probably already undergone some sort of biometric screening process in U.S. airports. After the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its interior agencies ramped up security measures to confirm travelers’ identities and snuff out potential terrorist threats. In 2003, U.S. airports began screening the faces and fingerprints…

Airports Are Embracing Facial Recognition

LOBSTER EYES HELP US SEE INTO SPACE

FOR MORE than half a century, scientists have sought to understand cosmic X-rays and what they reveal about our galaxy and beyond. As it turns out, lobsters — yes, really — can help astronomers do just that. These crustaceans have specialized eyes that can sense motion in low-light environments. By mimicking the eyes’ unique structure, scientists can build visual equipment, or optics, for missions outside of Earth’s orbit that aim to capture stray X-rays. In the future, this technique could broaden astronomers’ view of the sky, and their ability to detect astronomical events. LOBSTERS HAVE developed specialized eyes to see in dark, murky habitats located up to around 2,300 feet below the ocean surface. Though they can’t see images well, these crustaceans excel in sensing motion. Unlike humans, whose eyes consist of rounded…

LOBSTER EYES HELP US SEE INTO SPACE

Marley’s mother had a relatively normal pregnancy, and her birth went smoothly in 2015. But it was clear almost immediately that “things were not right, and we didn’t know why,” says her mother, Kelly. For starters, Marley couldn’t regulate her body’s temperature or blood sugar levels. She was born with a head full of silver hair, but within a few days it all fell out, chunk by chunk. Later, she grew cysts on her newly-hairless head. Marley was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where she spent the first month of her life. While she was there, doctors found signs that she had suffered cerebral hemorrhages, a type of stroke, on both sides of her brain. Perinatal strokes — strokes that occur late in pregnancy or early in…

Musical Mutations

What does Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony have in common with a finch’s beak? Kendrick Lamar’s cadence with an elephant’s trunk? They’re all products of evolution, according to the theory that culture changes over time to ensure its survival — just as living organisms do. By the time Charles Darwin published his treatise on natural selection, On the Origin of Species, in 1859, scholars were wondering if comparable theories could explain the development of everything from art and religious beliefs to technology and social institutions. Darwin even noted a “curious parallel” between the formation of new species and of new languages. In the late 19th century, such thinking became entwined with the racist notion that culture inevitably progresses from an inferior “primitive” state to the superior Western civilization. Pioneering anthropologists like Edward B. Tylor…

Musical Mutations

TARGETING TYPHOONS

Taiga Mitsuyuki, a marine systems engineer at Yokohama National University in Japan, holds a small plastic model in his hands. The 3D-printed ship, sporting twin hulls and rigid sails mounted on an A-frame, was built to illustrate a seemingly impossible purpose. If a full-scale version of the boat is built, it could draw energy from one of nature’s most destructive forces. Mitsuyuki and his colleagues have high hopes for such a vessel: The scientists want to make storm engineering a real prospect by 2050. Once deployed, these ships would enable the team to capture and store a typhoon’s energy with propellers and batteries. At the same time, an accompanying drone armada would inject a cooling agent into the storm, helping to weaken it. This mission feels increasingly vital as storms hitting Japan…

TARGETING TYPHOONS

Simulating the Perfect Storm

BEFORE THEY ATTEMPT to transform the weather, Typhoon Shot scientists must be able to simulate tropical storms’ intricate inner workings. Fortunately, they have Fugaku, which was named the world’s fastest computer two years in a row before a 2022 upset. The supercomputer is one of the few speedy enough to run the high-resolution typhoon simulations that will dictate the team’s next steps. Specifically, computer models allow researchers to study primary and secondary typhoon eyewall structures, where winds reach their highest speeds. These are key targets in weakening typhoon intensity, says Masaki Satoh of the University of Tokyo. The goal is to form a secondary eyewall that swallows the first and reduces the storm’s intensity. To properly analyze these storms, the Typhoon Shot team needs a computer that can handle extremely high-resolution…

Simulating the Perfect Storm

A Brief History of Weather Modification

TYPHOON SHOT ARRIVES in the wake of multiple attempts over the years by the U.S. military to commandeer the skies. It all began after World War II, when General Electric (GE) sought to understand why ice sometimes formed on U.S. aircraft and disabled them. To that end, GE scientists created the world’s first artificial snowfall by cloud seeding — releasing dry ice over a cloud — in upstate New York in 1946. In the resulting Project Cirrus, physicist Bernard Vonnegut (brother of author Kurt Vonnegut and part of the inspiration behind the novel Cat’s Cradle) enhanced the team’s snowmaking with silver iodide, a chemical compound that’s also used in film photography. GE proclaimed far-reaching applications of the research: “Making it rain, modifying hurricanes and clearing ground fogs near airports are some…

A Brief History of Weather Modification

NEXT-GEN TRANSIT

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, the modern automobile revolutionized public life across the U.S. Car innovation sparked new infrastructure, changed urban design and forever shifted the perception of travel throughout the 1920s. The 2020s are beginning to send similar ripples around the world of transit. Two key factors are driving the change: major investment in electric engines, and the dawn of autonomous vehicles. While the auto industry is leading this preeminent charge, aviation may follow suit. This transitional moment has opened the door to a swarm of wild ambitions, disruptions and broken promises. To cut through the tech drama and PR hype, the following pages zero in on the current landscape and central elements reshaping transit today. Suffice to say, the future is here — in all of its shiny, contentious glory. JOMIC/SHUTTERSTOCK; FRANKPETERS/ISTOCK…

NEXT-GEN TRANSIT

LONG BEFORE Instagram influencers and Twitter, there was the Vagabonds, circa 1915. The exclusive group of tycoons included Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and sometimes a U.S. president or two, gallivanting across the country. Together, they caravanned each summer in a fleet of Ford Model Ts — support staff, photographers and journalists in tow, broadcasting the dawn of the recreational road trip. The annual drives flourished for a decade until 1924, when the men had become too famous to frolic in public. These trips gave Ford and Edison, who had developed two electric vehicles together, the opportunity to discuss a vision of the future: combine Ford’s assembly line with Edison’s battery to make affordable, battery-electric cars. The U.S., after all, teemed with electric vehicles (EVs) for a brief time in the…

COMPONENTS OF AN ALL-ELECTRIC VEHICLE

→ HOW DOES AN EV WORK? Just like smartphones or tablets, electric cars draw their power from lithium-ion batteries, which are recharged by plugging into the power grid. An internal-combustion vehicle may require a gas station pit stop to refuel once or twice a week, while a drained EV can fully charge overnight in your garage. An electric vehicle’s battery pack typically consists of many smaller modules that each house hundreds of individual battery cells. The energy harnessed from these cells is channeled to a traction inverter, which converts DC to AC power to fuel the car’s specialized motor. In lieu of the multispeed transmission in a combustion engine, a small EV transmission produces enough torque across a wide range of speeds for the car to accelerate quickly using a single gear. The…

COMPONENTS OF AN ALL-ELECTRIC VEHICLE

YOUR ROBOTAXI IS ALMOST HERE

IF YOU NEED a ride in suburban Phoenix, you can hail a driverless Waymo One minivan on an app. “Good morning,” says a cheerily robotic voice, greeting you by name as you board. “This car is all yours, with no one up front.” To start the ride, just push the blue button on the rear display screen. Then, off you go, with a ghost behind the wheel. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, has been running this rider-only taxi service since late 2020. Other robotaxi fleets are rolling out in various U.S. cities, such as the launch of the General Motors-backed Cruise this summer in San Francisco. And in parts of the Sun Belt, autonomous trucks in test mode are already hauling freight for FedEx and other companies — with human drivers…

YOUR ROBOTAXI IS ALMOST HERE

EVOLUTION OF SAFETY FEATURES & AUTOMATION

1950–2000 Safety and Convenience • Seat belts • Cruise control • Anti-lock brakes 2000–2010 Advanced Safety • Electronic stability control • Blind-spot detection • Forward-collision warning • Lane-departure warning 2010–2016 Advanced Driver Assistance • Rearview video systems • Automatic emergency braking • Lane-centering assist 2016–2025 Partially Automated • Lane-keeping assist • Adaptive cruise control • Traffic-jam assist 2025+ Fully Automated • 100% self-driving • 100% self-driving • Steering wheel and pedals removed SOURCE: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration…

EVOLUTION OF SAFETY FEATURES & AUTOMATION

GREENER SKIES AHEAD

THERE’S A REASON all passenger jets are shaped like tubes. As an aircraft climbs in altitude, outside air pressure naturally decreases along with oxygen levels. To keep passengers from passing out, planes pump air into the cabin. This increases the pressure and the amount of breathable oxygen inside. But filling the enclosed space with air is a bit like blowing up a balloon. The challenge, explains R. John Hansman, a pilot and director of the MIT International Center for Air Travel, is designing a cabin that is strong enough to resist rupturing. “The most efficient shape for that is actually a tube,” he says. This is why airplanes on tarmacs around the world have looked unmistakably similar since the first jet airliner took off in 1949. The iconic tube shape plus two…

GREENER SKIES AHEAD

SPACEFLIGHT NEEDS AN UPGRADE

It’s no secret that launching a rocket into space isn’t great for the environment. Many traditional rocket fuels are dirty, toxic, and blast soot particles into the highest levels of the atmosphere when they breach Earth’s orbit. And humans are launching more rockets these days than ever before. In the face of climate change, more efficient and sustainable rocket fuels are being brought into the spotlight. A combo of hydrogen and oxygen, which leaves behind only water vapor, powered Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard joyride last summer. And SpaceX uses methane, which burns cleaner and more efficiently than traditional rocket fuels, to power its Starship rocket. Startups like bluShift Aerospace are even investigating the viability of biofuels made from plant matter to get rockets off the ground. But in practice, that remains a…

SPACEFLIGHT NEEDS AN UPGRADE

GOING PLACES ON FOOT isn’t a particularly glamorous way to get around. Sure, there are proven health, social and environmental benefits. But walking is … well, pedestrian, and for many running is a chore — or something you do when you’re late to catch a bus. According to human evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman, though, those activities are central to understanding what makes us human. When our ancestors adapted to getting around on two limbs instead of four, that adjustment made its mark on nearly every part of the human body from head to toe (and even our butts). Lieberman and his team at the Harvard University Skeletal Biology and Biomechanics Lab use evidence from the fossil record, biomechanics experiments in the lab and field research to develop models that explain the evolution…

Delivering a Jolt to Coffee’s Future

On a small hill near a busy highway in Sierra Leone, Jeremy Haggar found what might be the future of coffee. Haggar, a coffee researcher at the University of Greenwich in the U.K., was looking at a single small green tree, about waist high, hidden amidst the undergrowth in the West African country. If the stories were true, the humble plant represented an almost unbelievably fortuitous collection of attributes. Known by scientists as coffee stenophylla, the plant was once cultivated for commercial production, but had disappeared for the better part of the last century. It was said to tolerate temperatures higher than other commercial species, resist droughts and fungal infections, and, amazingly, taste better than almost any coffee on the market today. Haggar was in Sierra Leone following up on years of…

Delivering a Jolt to Coffee’s Future

The Gates of Hell has been burning nonstop for more than half a century in Turkmenistan. Also known as Darvaza, the 230-foot-wide flaming crater is fueled by a hidden natural gas reserve. Unsurprisingly, the site — situated roughly 160 miles north of the capital city of Ashgabat — has been a popular destination for the isolated country’s few tourists (and a few ultra-resilient bacteria). But that may soon change. In January, then-President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov asked his government to recruit a team of experts that could extinguish the flames, citing environmental and human health concerns — as well as lost petroleum profits. Though Darvaza’s origin is shrouded in Cold War-era secrecy, some claim that Soviet scientists ignited the crater after a drilling rig collapsed in 1971. The inferno runs on methane: a buffet…

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