Popular Science - Winter 2020

134 Pages·2020·24.8 MB·English

W I N T E R
2 0 2 0

59

tales of
resilience
in the face
of disaster

transform
can
we

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CHARTED

10 A century of progress
toward conquering cancer

12 In Colombia, invasive
hippos are…good?

14 A dash of microbes
makes our food taste better

16 The world’s most free-
wheeling bike havens

18 How to be happy, with
money or without

BIG QS

20 Sharing is caring—but is
it in our nature?

22 The path to curing our
illnesses from the inside out

22 A comfortable life in the
harshest conditions

22 How genetic diversity
breeds resilience

23 What we can do to make
students alright

24 The hidden benefi ts of
reviving ancient tongues

24 Can we quit our plastic
habit for good?

26 The case for teaching
old dogs new tricks

GOODS

30 This e-bike can tackle all
conditions—even snow

32 Safe, comfy face cover-
ings for any situation

33 The perfect purifi er to
clean up your airspace

34 Meet your new favorite
protein source

36 The bag to grab in the
middle of a crisis

38 Stink-free home com-
posting for any budget

40 Workout gear to
maximize your gym time

41 Four tools that’ll mend
your aching muscles

42 The most iconic offi ce
chair out there

TALES FROM THE FIELD

117 The microbial network
that fl avors sourdough

118 These jellyfi sh simply
refuse to die

118 Why space rovers live
beyond their years

119 When human adapta-
tion goes to extremes

120 Can we brew a tasty
beer on Mars?

121 After 100-plus years, this
bulb’s still burning

122 Trees make excellent
meteorologists

122 We’re all a little bit
Neanderthal

HEAD TRIP

125 The funkiest facts about
how our brains stay so darn
resilient, from the power of
doing nothing to those little
tricks and talents we can
never truly forget

BEHIND THE COVER

134 Why the monarch is our
ultimate cover model

CONTENTS

The battle
to reclaim
a buried
history

On the
front line of
pandemic
prevention

Niche design
tweaks that
improve life
for everyone

COVID-19
may propel
sustainable
fi shing

Atop the
looming
giants of the
natural world

We can
power big
cities without
polluting them

How to keep
prisons from
spreading
disease

Does
Earth need
our help
to heal?

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES / ILLUSTRATION BY GABY D’ALESSANDRO

FEATURES

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72

66

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102

108

80

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STAN HORACZEK

thing that elevated the piece
rather than degraded it.
In many ways, life in 2020 is
not unlike that fractured pottery.
A pandemic-induced global cri-
sis has exposed every fault in our
communities, from the impact
dirty power has on the air qual-
ity of those living in the shadow
of electric plants (page 80) to
a seafood industry that greatly
disadvantages the artisanal
fishermen pulling the world’s din-
ner out of the ocean (page 108).
But each of these fissures is a
reminder that we can do better—
and an opportunity to do so.
How we fix those breaches
shapes our path to a stronger,
safer, healthier, and more eq-
uitable world. Like kintsugi,
these efforts require care and
diligence— not duct tape and
hasty patchwork. Each gleam-
ing gold line we create mends our
communities so that they’re im-
provements on the originals.
That tireless work is what this
issue is all about. And in the 11-
plus years I’ve worked at, with,
or for PopSci, it easily ranks as
one of our most ambitious and
wide-ranging. The stories reach
corners of the globe rarely seen
before in these pages and high-
light efforts to lift up stifled voices.
It explores how, even if we’re faced
with great adversity, we can use
our ingenuity to help humanity
not just survive, but thrive.
This is not a smokescreen—
it’s been a rough year. But it’s also
a season for hope. For PopSci, it’s
a chance to find the steps to what
we know can be a bright, glim-
mering future for all of us.

I N J A PA N , T H E R E ’ S A
method of repairing shattered
pottery called kintsugi, in which
artisans rejoin shards with gold-
laced epoxy. Once the repair is
complete, the shimmering veins
not only increase the value of the
mended object, they also hold on
to the beauty of its past life as it
continues anew. Kintsugi builds
on the philosophy of wabi- sabi, a
belief that the aesthetic flaws of
age—things like rust, breakage,
and discoloration— enhance an
object’s overall splendor.
Legend holds that the tech-
nique arose in the 15th century,
when a shogun was displeased
with a first attempt at fixing his
favorite tea bowl. Conventional
practices had clumsily joined the
broken pieces with staples, so
he instructed craftsmen to find
a more elegant solution. Some-

where we
go from here

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