Alone On A Mountaintop, Awaiting A Very Hard Rain
Decades ago, Armenian scientists built a high-elevation trap to catch and study cosmic rays. Physics has mostly moved on, but the station persists — a ghost observatory with a skeleton crew.
Honeybee Venom Could Hold Secret To Treating Aggressive Breast Cancer
A young Australian scientist’s groundbreaking research has found honeybees could hold the secret to treating one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer.
Dr Ciara Duffy, 25, found venom from the honeybee could kill cancer cells in just 60 minutes.
Can Vertical Farms Reap Their Harvest? It’s Anyone’s Bet.
Food futurists and industry leaders say these high-tech vertical farming operations are the future of agriculture. Indoor-grown produce is available in more than 20 supermarket chains nationwide. But despite massive investment, questions remain about efficiency and costs.
Behind The Scenes Of A Radical New Cancer Cure
CAR-T involves removing a patient’s own blood, filtering for immune cells called T-cells, and genetically engineering those cells to recognize and attack cancer. CAR-T made history in 2017 as the first FDA-approved gene therapy to treat any disease. The trials that led to approval showed response rates of 80 percent and above in aggressive leukemias and lymphomas that had resisted chemotherapy.
We Bought A €1 House In Italy. Here’s What Happened Next.
A new house — and potentially a whole new life — for sale in sunkissed rural Italy for the princely sum of just one euro, or little over a dollar. Over the past year or so, numerous small towns from Sicily in the south to the northern Alps have been offering such bargains in the hope of attracting new residents to revitalize dying communities.
The Weird Power Of The Placebo Effect, Explained
Placebos seem to have the greatest power over symptoms that lie at the murky boundary between the physical and psychological. Placebos seem to move the needle on pain, nausea, asthma, and phobias, with more inconsistent results for outcomes like smoking, dementia, depression*, obesity, hypertension, insomnia, and anxiety.
Secrets I Never Knew About Airports Until I Worked At LAX
When LAX offered me the opportunity to work with its TSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) teams, I couldn’t say no. From dead bodies in the security line to a cobra in a Pringles can, you wouldn’t believe the crazy things that happen at America’s busiest airport of origin.
The Pentagon’s Push To Program Soldiers’ Brains
The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.
That Time We Almost Built 8 Gigawatt-class Floating Nuclear Power Plants
In 1969, at the height of the First Nuclear Era, an engineer at New Jersey’s PSE&G utility company named Richard Eckert wondered, what if huge nuclear plants could be built in serial at a production facility, put on a barge, and floated to sites out at sea?
The German Island With A Population Of 16
The 16 residents who live on the tiny German island of Oland must cope with extreme flooding on a regular basis. But they have no intention of leaving.
Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?
Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking—and the difference matters. Most intelligence tests fail to capture real-world decision-making and our ability to interact well with others. This is why “smart” people do “dumb” things.
This Tank Graveyard Is A Monument To Eritrea’s Struggle For Liberation
A short distance from Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, lies a “tank graveyard”—a field littered with thousands of stacked military tanks, rusting trucks, and worn-out cars, remnants of a devastating, three-decade conflict with Ethiopia. A massive military junkyard takes on new meaning.
Moonless Moonlit Nights
Commuters are generally too tired to notice the quickly passing scenery or the complicated reflections layered up on the short, fast train ride home from Tokyo to Yokohama. But photographer Yasunori Murayama pays attention. He captures multiple stories in single exposures.
The World’s Oldest Winery in Armenia
The Areni-1 complex, uncovered in 2007, contains a 6,100-year-old winery replete with fermenting vats, a grape press, and subterranean clay storage vessels. Altogether, it’s the best-preserved archeological site in the ongoing search for winemaking’s birthplace.
Inside The Abandoned Babylon That Saddam Hussein Built
In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein became obsessed with the Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar. Saddam saw himself as a modern reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar, and to prove it, he spent millions building a massive reconstruction of Babylon.
Investigating The Dangerous New Mafia Taking Control In Italy
The mafia is one of Italy’s most famous international business brands, with an estimated annual turnover of $250 billion a year. But its market share is being challenged by a group of ruthless new players. This documentary is about the growing power of Nigerian organized crime in the birthplace of the Italian mafia.
Inside Belarus, Europe’s Last Dictatorship
In October 2016, Alexander Lukashenko swept to his fifth term as the Belarusian president, marking 22 years in power. The autocratic regime still employs the use of internet surveillance, censorship, and intimidation to exert control over its people and press.
Post-War East Harlem Photographed By Leo Goldstein
Leo Goldstein began capturing East Harlem in 1949 after he’d joined the New York Photo League, a photo club that originated around the beginning of the Great Depression. Having remained largely unseen for the last 70 years, his photographs are now the focus of a new book, East Harlem: The Postwar Years.
Montenegro’s Scenic Coast Spoiled By Greed
Montenegro is the only country in the world to describe itself as “ecological” in its constitution. But the exploitation of its Adriatic coastline, where developers are given free rein, tells a different story.
Coming Out Of The Shadows: What It Means To Be French And Chinese
France is home to large Vietnamese and Cambodian communities who arrived in the country in great numbers following the wars in the former French colonies in the 1970s. People of Chinese descent have long faced prejudice and violence in France. But today a new generation is staking out its rightful place in society.
MDMA Researcher Is Fixing The Bad Science That Sent Him To Prison
As a teenager, Christopher Medina-Kirchner went to prison for selling ecstasy, but now his MDMA research is debunking the bad science that got him there. He’s also creating a pipeline to help other formerly incarcerated people transition into scientific research.