The future of silk

Words by Hiawatha Bray

Silk is stronger than steel or kevlar. We are already using it to transport vaccines without cold chains and make automatically dissolving stitches. What else could it be used for?

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Silk

Watt lies beneath

Words by Tom Ough

The earth’s core is hot. So hot, that if we drilled deep enough, we could power the world millions of times over with cheap, clean energy, supporting renewables when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. But getting there is tough.

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Holes

The cocktail revolution

Words by Peter Suderman

Cocktails aren’t what they used to be – and that’s a good thing. The search for fresher and more novel ingredients from ever further afield continues to revolutionize mixology for the better.

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Cocktails

Making architecture easy

Words by Samuel Hughes

Unlike nearly all other arts, architecture is inherently public and shared. That means that buildings should be designed to be agreeable – easy to like – not to be unpopular works of genius.

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Tonality

The discovery of copper

Words by Ed Conway

Today’s world requires vastly more copper than you could imagine, and the world of electric vehicles will require even more. That means finding new ways to find and extract copper from the earth’s crust and oceans.

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Copper

Houston, we have a solution

Words by Anya Martin

Houston was notorious for its sprawl. But it has seen a gentle density revolution since the 1990s. Allowing neighborhoods to opt out of citywide reforms was crucial in its transformation.

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Texas

How DC densified

Words by Emily Hamilton

Washington, DC, has avoided the worst price rises that have plagued many other growing American cities. Arlington’s transit-oriented development might be the reason.

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Density

Taming the stars

Words by John Myers

Cheap, safe nuclear power is possible, but is all but prohibited in most Western countries. A regulatory sandbox for fission could shake us out of our regulatory sclerosis.

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Fission
Film
Gentle Density
Gentle Density
Reconciling beauty and density
Episode 1: BrooklynEpisode 1: Brooklyn
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