How smart windows save energy
By Brittney J. Miller Specialized glass that keeps heat in during winter and lets it out during summer could make buildings much more efficient — if costs and complexities don’t get in the way Read more
Mitochondria and the origin of eukaryotes
By Viviane Callier Were the powerhouse organelles a driving force or a late addition in the evolution of more complex cells like ours? Read more
How cities can fight climate change
By Deepa Padmanaban Urban activities — think construction, transportation, heating, cooling and more — are major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. Today, a growing number of cities are striving to slash their emission to net zero — here’s what they need to do. Read more
From the archives
A chicken in every pot is a more recent aspiration than previously thought, writes Bruce Bower in a Science News story on the domestication of the once-revered birds. For more on when people brought another animal — the horse — into the barnyard, check out our deep dive.
The tale of the domesticated horse
By Amber Dance The beloved animal has shaped human history over millennia, just as people have influenced its evolution — but only recently have scientists discovered exactly when and where it went from wild to tame Read more
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The origins and future of the Grand Canyon
How old is the Grand Canyon? Will the Colorado River run dry? Learn about how the Big Ditch formed, and the present state and uncertain future of the Colorado River watershed.
What we’re reading
Tradition without tusks
The koto and the shamisen — two traditional Japanese string instruments — rely on ivory to make the highest-quality sound, and musicians say the natural material makes the instruments more comfortable to play during long performances. Now researchers and musicians are teaming up to try to design synthetic ivory that will deliver the same dulcet notes without sacrificing endangered animals for their tusks. For BBC Future, Rachel Nuwer covers the challenge of replicating the material, and its place in Japanese music.
Go with the flow
Ever since a 1950s study of trains traveling through the Soviet railway system, researchers have strived for faster ways to calculate the efficient movement of material through a network. It’s a problem that today includes data flowing through the Internet, employee-recruitment systems, supply chains transporting goods, and more. A recent retooling of these “maximum-flow algorithms” has yielded stunning results, cutting runtimes to close to the theoretical limit, reports Erica Klarreich for Quanta. Come for the splashy traffic gif, stay for the “slam dunk” math.
In living culture
According to Eurocentric narratives, the Yaghan — Indigenous people native to the splay of islands at the southern tip of South America known as Tierra del Fuego — have long been dead and gone. They aren’t, though, and that’s just one of many inaccuracies in outsiders’ largely superficial stories of the people and region. For Hakai, Jude Isabella takes us to this remote end of the Earth and covers efforts by the community and archeologists to dispel old scientific assumptions and reconstruct a deeper, more nuanced history of this place and its inhabitants.
Art & science
Spinning spiders
When pieced together by textile artist Mister Finch, thread and bits of salvaged fabric could easily become the kind of ornate yet snuggly stuffed animals that parents and children covet. But Finch veers into the fantastic — particularly when he’s building larger-than-life cloth spiders.
The shiny, mottled and furry bodies of his arachnids are made of fabrics collected at fairs and markets and are hand-sewn: If you look closely, you can see the delicate seams running down their bodies and legs. Some real-life spiders have rather generous proportions — the giant huntsman spider, for example, has a legspan of about a foot, and the Goliath bird-eating tarantula’s nearly five-inch-long body sports legs that stretch 11 inches — but Finch’s creations dwarf these living counterparts.
Though Finch’s spiders can’t move, the artist creates the illusion of life in photographs by hanging the eight-legged beings from the ceiling; others rest on human shoulders or appear to scuttle up a lap. For more spiders, check out Colossal, and for moths, birds, bunnies and the rest of the Finch menagerie, visit his page.
