Crossings — How Road Ecology is Changing the Future of the Planet
Anyone who has crossed a busy road in a metropolis without well-regulated traffic, in say Mumbai, India, can understand the plight of a deer trying to cross a two-lane highway, in rural United States.…
The Atlas of Perfumes
The gods created scents; humans make perfumes. Naked and frail, they survive only by artifice (trickery). Jean Giono In the late 1960s, Jean-Claude Ellena, an apprentice perfumer in France, tried to reproduce Eau…
The mRNA Nobelist
One day in 1997, University of Pennsylvania molecular biologist Katalin (Kati) Karikó met a new hire at the photocopier who would change the trajectory of her research forever. At 42, the scientist had made…
The Power of Language
At the pediatrician’s clinic, a nurse told Viorica Marian, who is a native speaker of Romanian, to use only English with her American-born daughter. Speaking another language would “confuse” the child and hurt her long-term,…
Vera Rubin
Ashley Jean Yeager VERA RUBIN began her career at a time when women were denied access to telescopes at leading observatories. Eventually her work helped scientists rethink the content of the cosmos. In Bright Galaxies, Dark…