Technology

ByKristin Romey Published September 30, 2022 • 20 min read This past Labor Day, as beachgoers up and down the eastern seaboard of the U.S. enjoyed a sunny holiday at the shore, Erik Petkovic was in the darkened cabin of R/V Explorer some 40 miles off the Virginia coast. Peering into a video monitor linked to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) some 400 feet below, he suddenly exclaimed, “That’s it! There it is!” The object that caused his excitement was the wreckage of SM U-111, the last World War I-era German submarine to be discovered in U.S. waters. The sleek … Read more

Magazine Innovator Through genomic studies, Keolu Fox spearheads the search for clues to new medicines, better health care, and even land reclamation. ByBijal P. Trivedi Published September 29, 2022 • 2 min read When a graduate school professor told Native Hawaiian Keolu Fox that studying the genetics and genomics of Indigenous peoples was “career suicide,” Fox vowed that all his projects would prioritize the health of minorities. Fox followed through on that commitment after learning that most genetic studies and clinical trials are based on people of European ancestry—a bias that could result in unsafe or useless treatments for people … Read more

Animals Wildlife Watch In the last six months, three dolphins have died in The Mirage’s animal exhibit—which is now temporarily shuttered. ByDina Fine Maron Published September 29, 2022 • 7 min read K2 was fun to be around. The bottlenose dolphin was an energetic 11-year-old, a young adult in dolphin years, who was born at The Mirage casino on the Las Vegas strip and lived his entire life there. Visitors sometimes paid as much as $450 to have brief in-water interactions with him and other bottlenose dolphins. His handlers said he was often vocal and made people smile. But earlier this … Read more

ByMaría José Noain Published September 29, 2022 • 12 min read For many centuries, beliefs about the roles of girls and women in ancient Greece centered around how limited and hidden their lives were. Women were kept out of the public sphere, denied citizenship, and held no legal or political standing. Excluded from the polis, women were relegated to the oikos, or household, as wives, mothers, and daughters. Much of this notion originated in written sources from classical Greece. Xenophon, Plato, and Thucydides all testified to the so-called inferiority of women to men. Writing in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle … Read more

Travel From chiseling perfect spheres to dealing with nesting falcons, a stonemason’s work is far from one dimensional. ByRachael Rowe Published September 29, 2022 • 11 min read When the work of a stonemason goes unnoticed, it’s a noteworthy accomplishment. Such is the paradoxical calling of stonemasonry, a fading craft that was not only essential in the rise of global architecture, but also one that remains crucial to the preservation of countless sacred and iconic sites. Over the centuries, even the most solid stone crumbles. England is home to innumerable historic sites always in need of assessment and maintenance, from … Read more

ByMichael Greshko Published September 28, 2022 • 14 min read Over hundreds of millions of years, chance and survival have sculpted an extraordinary menagerie of vertebrate life that thrives on land, in the air, and in the water. Vertebrates are animals with spinal columns, including humans, and arguably the single biggest step in vertebrate evolutionary history—even more significant than our distant aquatic forebears’ first waddles onto land—is something we may take for granted: the evolution of the jaw. From vocalizing to biting food, the jaw is essential to the survival of 99.8 percent of living vertebrates. Only a precious few … Read more

ByJennifer Barger Published September 28, 2022 12 min read In the first half of the 20th century, neon hummed and flickered across the United States, decorating billboards in New York City‘s Times Square, on New Mexico motor inns along Route 66, and at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Yet, even by the 1950s and 1960s, neon was considered “grandpa’s technology,” says J. Eric Lynxwiler, president of the board at the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles. Soon enough, billboards were scrapped or neglected across the country, and many areas banned neon, calling it trashy or energy hogging (even … Read more

Animals Nine of 10 red wolves released this year are dead or back in captivity. But many are pressing forward to save this endangered species. ByMeaghan Mulholland Published September 28, 2022 • 8 min read In early 2022, a total of 10 red wolves were released from captivity into wildlife refuges in eastern North Carolina, part of a court-mandated acceleration of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s long-standing recovery program aimed at restoring these critically endangered animals. It took place after months of careful planning and collaboration between zoos, wildlife sanctuaries, and biologists managing red wolf recovery. In all, three breeding … Read more

ByFlorian Sturm Photographs ByEsther Horvath Published September 28, 2022 • 13 min read Münster, GermanyFifteen minutes southeast of this university town, residential streets give way to farm fields, and the road winds and narrows. Next to a large wood, behind a tall chain-link fence, lie five old military bunkers—low swells in the landscape, their curved roofs covered with grass. Dominik Lermen heads toward one and takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket. The clattering is swallowed by birds chirping and wind whooshing through the trees. Finally, he finds the right key, and I follow him through the plain … Read more