Category: Science

Salmon Rebellion

Originally published in Sierra. Last year on August 24, Ernest Alfred, an elementary-school teacher and hereditary chief from the ‘Namgis, Lawit’sis, and Mamalilikala First Nations, boated out to Swanson Island, British Columbia, and began to set up tents with a small group of other First Nations activists. A few days earlier, Alfred had been sitting… Continue reading Salmon Rebellion

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Categorized as Food, Science

The Story Behind One Solar Robot

I am peering through the glass window of a refrigerator-sized machine. The machine is named Endurance, if you go by the printing on its side, or Lucy, if you go by what Leila Madrone calls it. I’m watching some plastic get tortured. It’s going through the equivalent of 100 years of life in a harsh… Continue reading The Story Behind One Solar Robot

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Categorized as Science

How FEMA’s Toxic Katrina Trailers Made it to an Oil Boomtown

As soon as Nick Shapiro turned into the parking lot of the Tumbleweed Inn in Alexander, N.D., he recognized the trailers. They were off-white, boxy, almost cartoonish, and unadorned with any of the frills — racing stripes, awnings, window treatments — that a manufacturer would typically add to set a trailer apart on a display lot.… Continue reading How FEMA’s Toxic Katrina Trailers Made it to an Oil Boomtown

The Story of Bones

Originally published in Meatpaper, Issue 16 Could I interest you in a skeleton? Perhaps you are thinking, being a small, soft-bodied creature, that being blobbish is not so bad. What’s wrong with having the shape and constitution of a piece of cooked spaghetti? Nothing. Honest. We don’t want to make you feel bad about yourself. But… Continue reading The Story of Bones

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Categorized as Science