WHY SETTLE FOR A SINGLE

GOOD CUP OF COFFEE,

WHEN YOU CAN HAVE A GOOD CUP OF COFFEE

EVERY SINGLE TIME.

EACH MAXWELL HOUSE BLEND IS SELECTED FR

FIVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BEANS, SO EVER
DELICIOUS CUP IS GOOD TO THE LAST DR

Keurig, the Cup and Star design, Keurig Brewed and K-Cup®
 Feed
Volume 288 No. 2

MARCH/APRIL

CONTENTS
201 6

40
Featuring
44
LIVE FOREVER
Want more birthdays? Science
can help.
B R O O K E B O R EL

HOW
54
THE BARON OF LOW-EARTH
ORBIT

TO WIN
Robert Bigelow built a hotel empire
on Earth. Can he create a habitat for
humans in space?

THE
RYAN B R AD LEY

60
THE WAR OF SOCIAL MEDIA

FUTURE
An exclusive interview with
ISIS has brought global terrorism to a
new battlefield: the Internet.
EM ER S O N B R O O K IN G AN D
P. W. S IN GER
President Obama on what he’s
achieved, what’s left to do, and 66
why America needs more nerds. THE VIZZIES
CL IFF R A N S O M The winners of our annual visualiza-
tion competition make science and
engineering look stunning.

72
FUKUSHIMA, FIVE YEARS LATER
Japan is cleaning up one of the worst
nuclear disasters the world has ever
seen. It still has a long way to go.
ST EVE F EAT H ER STO N E

HERE AND ON
THE COVER
F. Scott Schafer
photographed
President Obama
at the White House.

PH OTO G RA P H BY F. Scott Schafer P OP SC I . C OM 03

Feed
Volume 288 No. 2 For daily updates: facebook.com/popsci

11 20 22

MARCH/APRIL
24 38

CONTENTS
2016

78 84 93

Departments
20 Razer’s CEO thinks you’ll soon be friending an MANUAL
Xbox character 78 Unleash your inner mad scientist
22 Virtually indestructible bike tires 80 A machine that plays the weather
82 Nurses who invent on the job
FEED NEXT 84 You need an applause machine
06 From the Editor 24 Rocket science is hard (really) 86 Hear a record with your teeth
08 Before We Begin 26 A sneaky strategy to beat brain cancer 88 Rise of the makerspace
26 One man’s sludge is another man’s treasure 90 A DIY tool for reading brain waves
NOW 28 Marcia McNutt on why every schoolchild could 92 Grow a thriving bacterial zoo
11 Six ways to play—without getting your be a digital Lewis and Clark 93 This mask lets you smell the rainbow
hands dirty 30 Move over, Pluto, there’s a new Planet 9—and it’s
14 10 great ideas in gear much bigger END MATTER
16 Ken Kesey would be jealous of this autonomous 32 A glider that reaches 90,000 feet 94 Ask Us Anything: Why do shower curtains
party bus 35 Are we ready for designer babies? billow inward?
17 How to podcast like a pro 36 The future of forests is looking up 106 Terminus: Envisioning how our lives might
18 Video cameras that film in all directions 38 Plastic, heal thyself look in the future

04 PO P S CI. CO M
Feed MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Editor’s Letter

Editor in Chief Cliff Ransom

Design Director Todd Detwiler
Executive Editor Jennifer Bogo

Create EDITORIAL
Managing Editor Jill C. Shomer
Editorial Production Manager Felicia Pardo
Articles Editor Kevin Gray

Your Future
Information Editor Katie Peek, Ph.D.
Technology Editor Michael Nuñez
Projects Editor Sophie Bushwick
Associate Editors Breanna Draxler
Assistant Editors Matt Giles, Xavier Harding
Editorial Assistant Grennan Milliken
Copy Editor Cindy Martin

I
Researchers Rebecca Geiger, Ambrose Martos, Erika Villani
Editorial Interns Lydia Chain, Steph Lin, Nicole Lou

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo Director Thomas Payne
n technology and the highest level—where science Digital Associate Art Director Michael Moreno
startup circles, there’s and technology are going, you ask Designer Zachary Gilyard
the guy in charge. So we did. And
a saying people like President Barack Obama gave us
POPULARSCIENCE.COM
Online Director Carl Franzen
to toss around: “The best way to one heck of an answer. He took us Senior Editor Paul Adams
Social Media Editor Jason Lederman
through all he’s accomplished in
predict the future is to create it.” the past seven years and all that
Assistant Editors Sarah Fecht, Claire Maldarelli
Contributing Writers Kelsey D. Atherton, Mary Beth Griggs,
No one really knows who said it remains for his final year in office.
He covered private space, maker
Alexandra Ossola

first. Some people attribute it to culture, climate change, the virtues CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Brooke Borel, Tom Clynes, Clay Dillow, Nicole Dyer, Daniel Engber,
Abraham Lincoln, others to the of being a nerd, and the hazards of
getting stranded on Mars. He talked
Tom Foster, William Gurstelle, Mike Haney, Joseph Hooper,
Corinne Iozzio, Gregory Mone, Adam Piore, P.W. Singer, Erik Sofge,
business guru Peter Drucker. But about keeping America competitive Kalee Thompson, James Vlahos, Jacob Ward
and keeping the planet safe.
that doesn’t stop it from showing In today’s political climate, it can
Group Editorial Director Anthony Licata

up on mugs and T-shirts and in be hard to find topics that don’t BONNIER TECHNOLOGY GROUP
inspire angst in one group or another. Vice President, Publishing Director, New York Gregory D. Gatto
cheesy Keynote presentations. But in science and technology, we can
Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Burnham Murphy
Financial Director Tara Bisciello
As an editor, my tolerance for usually find some common ground. National Advertising Director Jeff Timm
campy, prepackaged one-liners is At the magazine, our position has Northeast Advertising Office Matt Levy (Manager),
Shawn Lindeman, Frank McCaffrey, Chip Parham
more or less zero. It’s as if two pieces always been blissfully apolitical: If
Midwest Manager Doug Leipprandt
of Styrofoam are rubbing together you stand with science, we stand West Coast Account Manager Stacey Lakind
when I hear them. But at the risk of with you. And whether we’re talking Detroit Advertising Director Jeff Roberge
sounding clichéd, I kind of love this to CEOs, scientists, or even the Advertising Coordinator Nicky Nedd
Digital Campaign Managers Amanda Alimo
quote. I love its spirit. The future, it president of the United States, our Digital Campaign CoordinatorJustin Ziccardi
says, doesn’t have to arrive by chance. questions are basically the same: Do Group Sales Development Director Alex Garcia
We can purpose-build it to our needs. you support good, unbiased research, Senior Sales Development Manager Amanda Gastelum
The advice applies to individuals. and do you strive for big solutions to Sales Development Manager Charlotte Grima
Creative Services Director Ingrid M. Reslmaier
You know, plan for retirement, avoid big problems? If so, let’s talk. Marketing Design Directors Jonathan Berger, Gabe Ramirez
cliff diving, and slow down on those During the State of the Union Marketing Design Manager Sarah Hughes
Baconator burgers. But it also applies address in January, President Digital Design Manager Steve Gianaca
Obama said, “We live in a time of Group Events & Promotion Director Beth Hetrick
to nations. If we want America to
Promotions Managers Eshonda Caraway-Evans, Lynsey White
lead the world tomorrow, we need extraordinary change—change that’s Consumer Marketing Director Bob Cohn
to make strategic bets today—and a reshaping the way we live, the way Public Relations Manager Molly Battles
number of those bets should be made we work, our planet, and our place Human Resources Director Kim Putman
Group Production Director Michelle Doster
in science and technology. Few fields in the world.” As readers of Popular
shape our future as they do. Science, this likely isn’t news to you.
Many smart people help guide Change is one of the few constants
the national science and technology in the universe. It’s how we confront
agenda, but one individual has an change that matters. The president
outsized impact: the president of can certainly help by setting the Chairman Tomas Franzén
the United States. Advised by some right science and technology agenda, Chief Executive Officer Eric Zinczenko
very brainy folks in the White House and our magazine can help by mak- Chief Operating Officer David Ritchie
Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Burnham Murphy
Office of Science and Technology ing that agenda plain. But in the end, Chief Digital Revenue Officer Sean Holzman
Policy, the president determines we all need to do more than dream of Vice President, Integrated Sales John Graney
what we, as a nation, should pursue. a brighter future. We need to get out Vice President, Consumer Marketing John Reese
there and build it. Vice President, Digital Audience Development Jennifer Anderson
That could be neuroscience or clean
Vice President, Digital Operations David Butler
energy or science education or Vice President, Public Relations Perri Dorset
some combination thereof. Those General Counsel Jeremy Thompson
policy initiatives help drive funding;
that funding drives research and Enjoy the issue.
M A R I U S BU G GE

development; and that R&D lays the

Cliff Ransom This product is from
foundation for the future.
sustainably managed
If you want to understand—at Editor in Chief
forests and
controlled sources.

06 POP S CI. CO M
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Feed MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Before We Begin

Science,
Visualized
On page 66, we feature the winners
of the 2016 Vizzies, a contest that
challenges readers to visualize
a scientific idea, concept, or
story in an arresting way. Go to
popsci.com/vizzies to see all of the
finalists, including the video- and
interactive-category winners.

Mad About Food

Social-media editor Jason Lederman
recently dropped in to see what
famed Food Network personality
Alton Brown had cooked up at
his food-science studio. Brown
showed off a few of his inventions,
including a machine that can freeze
ice cream in 10 seconds, and a giant
Easy-Bake-like oven that uses stage
lights to cook pizza at 800 degrees.
FROM THE Stay tuned to popsci.com to see his

ARCHIVES creations in action.

That’s a strange-looking
Xbox controller…
We were so excited to get our inaugu-
ral double issue out on shelves that
we made a few slip-ups. On page 13 of
January/February 2016, we mixed up
the labels on an Xbox wireless control-
ler and a Slingbox M2 media box. On
page 63, we called Fred Ehrsam the
CFO of the Bitcoin wallet Coinbase,
when he is actually the co-founder and
president. And on page 90, we stated
that the Potomac River was near the
Aberdeen Proving Ground in northern
Maryland. The river actually borders
southern Maryland.

Want more? Check us out on

social media! Besides Facebook,
S A R A H DE H E ER

Twitter, Pinterest, and

Instagram, look for our
icon—a chimp in a spacesuit—
on Tumblr and List App. You
can even watch us test gear,
fly drones, and conduct
experiments (sometimes on
08 PO P S CI. CO M each other) on Periscope.
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PIXEL-PERFECTION
A NEW BREED OF TELEVISION
LG has created a brand new category of TV with the introduction of OLED and
it’s emissive technology, Organic Light Emitting Diodes. These organic substances
are self lighting and glow when an electric current runs through them. This innovation
allows for each sub pixel to be individually lit and turned off or on as needed
to create an ideal viewing experience.

INTENSE BLACK LEVELS:

by individually lighting
each pixel and being able
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PIXELS POWERED
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EXTREMELY WIDE VIEWING ANGLE:

The exceptional picture quality holds up even from wide
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YVONxiglrspsk}irefpiwehiwmkrxlexmwypxvexlmrerhpmklx.Sx=w
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 E D I T ED BY M IC H A E L N U Ñ E Z + XAVI E R H A RD I N G

MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6

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AiR

TO PlAY TAKe
Without Getting
fliGHT
P R O P ST YL IN G BY LI N DA K E I L F O R H A LL EY R ES O U R C ES

Your Hands Dirty

We’re calling it: We live 1
in a golden age of remote- YUNeEC tYPHOON
Q500 4K DRONE
controlled gadgets. Techno- $1,199.99
logical leaps in sensors,
Who cares about federal drone regulations? The
batteries, processors, and Typhoon Q500 always knows where it is and will
motors. Of all the vehicles you stay within legal airspace (under 400 feet). It
shoots 4K video and streams live to the control-
can operate from a distance, ler’s monitor (so you don’t have to use your phone’s
here are six of the best— by
DAV E
spotty Wi-Fi connection). You can also remove
the camera and attach it to a handheld gimbal for
by air, by sea, and by land. GE R S HGOR N stabilized ground video.

PH OTO G RA P H Y BY Brian Klutch P OP SC I . C OM 11

Now MARCH/ APRIL 2016

First Look

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A P L AY — W I
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HAND
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G OU
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AiR

DiVe DeeP
2
PARROT ORAK
HYDROFOiL DRONE
$159

The Orak is a hybrid drone that’s just as capable

in the air as it is in the water. This hydrofoil is pow-
ered by a tiny quadcopter that lifts vertically about
3 inches from the hull to provide thrust. It can
cruise past 6 mph atop the waves or up to 11 mph
in the sky. Just detach the quadcopter and fly! 3

3
ViDEORAY
PRO 4
$43,500

If you want to go deep (underwater

and into your pockets), the VideoRay
Pro 4 will take you there. This under-
water drone has a maximum depth
of 1,000 feet. The Pro 4 shoots video
at 1080p and instantly transmits raw
footage to the surface through its
tether. It’s also outfitted with two LED
light arrays to illuminate your path
through the ocean’s depths.

R EL I N DA KE I L F O R HA L LE Y RE SO U RC E S

4
OPeNROV TRiDeNT
$1,199

OpenROV’s Trident is an open-source

submersible that can be piloted using
a virtual-reality headset or a laptop,
allowing you a full range of control
H EBY

4 up to 328 feet below the surface.

KG
STI TY LTIN

The drone offers two hours of what

the company calls “flight time.” It
also comes with a tether, so you can
P R CORPED

survey the deep ocean a la James

Cameron without worrying about
G UT T ER

losing your precious explorer.

12 P O P SC I .C O M P HOTOGR AP H BY Credit Here

 M A R C H /A P R IL 2 0 1 6
Now
First Look

TY •
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5
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AiR

6
P R O P ST Y LI NG BY LI N DA K EI L FO R HA LL EY R ES OU R C ES

6
TRAXXAS X-MAXX
5 $799

DRiVE
Rip through any terrain with a
ANKi OVeRDRiVE
monster truck the size (and de-
$149.99

HARD
meanor) of a small terrier. The car
is nearly 30 inches long and tops
The raceway comes to your living 35 mph at its fastest. While four-
room with this pair of futuristic wheel drive ensures the grippiest
vehicles. Build one of eight traction on any surface, the X-Maxx
pre-configured tracks, then drive also has self-righting technology.
the cars using any Bluetooth-ready That means if you overturn it on a
tablet or phone. Each car is pro- tight corner, you can hit a button on
grammed to race on its own, so you the remote and it flips back on its
always have a worthy opponent. wheels and keeps right on going.

P OP SC I . C OM 13
Now 1
MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Goods

HiT
lisT 2 3

10 Great Ideas in Gear

1 BEVEL TRIMMER 5 MOTO 360 SPORT

Not much has changed Smartwatches don’t 4
in the electric-clipper have to be precious.
space—your barber Motorola’s 360 Sport
likely uses the same is rugged enough to
tools as the one before survive your workout
him. Bevel’s Trimmer — that’s because it’s
looks and works like also a fitness tracker.
it’s from the future: a The silicone band,
cool blue LED, reduced heart-rate sensor, and
vibration, and a dial to round display are fixed
adjust blade alignment. inside an enclosure
Timeless tool, meet that’s dust- and water-

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COURTESY AXEL AUDIO; COURTESY BEVEL; COURTESY NONDA; COURTESY SANDISK; COURTESY BEELINE;
modern age. $180 resistant. $299

2 AXEL AUDIO 6 BEELINE

We all have our favorite
genres of music.
Clear directions are
crucial for bikers mid-
7
Axel Audio’s line of ride. But who wants to 6
headphones is tailored hold a cellphone and
to your preferred style: look at the map app
Deep for the bass lover, while peddling? Beeline
Pure for the instrumen- is a compass-size
talist, and Core for the handlebar attachment 5

COURTESY LUCI; COURTESY GRAMOXOV; COURTESY ELLUM; COURTESY JETBLADE; COURTESY MOTOROLA
balanced pop enthusi- that knows where
asts. From $145 you’re going, and uses
an e-ink screen to get
3 NONDA ZUS you there. $69
CHARGER
Lots of smartphone 7 LUCI
chargers attach to a Solar-powered? Wa-
car’s cigarette lighter. terproof? Collapsible?
But few offer a second Check, check, and
USB charging port for check. Luci’s portable
passengers. Fewer light also has a loop
still can help you find
your car on a map via
hook for easy hanging
anywhere. An extra
9
smartphone—this does $10 gets you color-
both. Never go hunting changing abilities.
for your car again. $34 Thomas Edison would
be proud. $15
4 SANDISK IXPAND 8
Moving photos and 8 JETBLADE
videos off your phone to Hydro boosters for your
free up storage space feet. There’s nothing
is annoying. SanDisk more to say—except
makes it easy with the that it works only on 10 ELLUM
iXpand flash drive. Plug water. $6,000 Ellum’s motion-
it into your iPhone and sensing lights illumi-
instantly store up to 9 GRAMOXOV nate as you move past
128GB of data. Never For those who’ve them and dim as you
delete one video to wondered, “Why leave. The wood-grain
record another again. doesn’t anyone make lamp can be mounted
From $60 a vertical turntable?” to walls without
Gramovox does, and having to drill a hole,
it’s the coolest vinyl which we’d say is a
by player around. Once recipe for enlighten-
XAVI ER again, analog stands ment. From $129
HARDING tall. $400

14 PO PSCI. CO M
Now MARCH/ APRIL 2016

Speed Lab

PARtY ON
AUTOPilOT Mercedes-Benz has a feeling 26-inch wheels, giving it a
Mercedes’ newest concept is auton- we’ll hang out like we’re on a look right out of Tron.
omous with holographic displays futuristic party bus. But the car’s best features
The company’s Vision Tokyo aren’t even visible: The engi-
concept car, unveiled at the neers at Mercedes built the
The impending arrival of autonomous vehicles has a Tokyo Motor Show, is aimed at Vision Tokyo to learn as it
lot of engineers wondering: What will the interior of a drivers who love their digital drives autonomously. That
smart car look like without the steering wheel, pedals, toys. A circular leather couch means that with each journey,
and gauges? And what will we do with ourselves if that seats up to five people the car will learn more about
we’re not driving? dominates the interior space. It its occupants and their
wraps around what design- preferences. Add that the car
ers say will be a holographic has a hybrid battery and a
display, capable—in theory—of fuel cell engine, puts out zero
projecting maps, games, music emissions, and has a 600-mile
choices, and other apps that range on a single charge. It’s
passengers can use as they ride obvious why you’d want one.
along in electric-car silence. In case passengers are not
The car’s single door takes ready to embrace the future
up the entire left side and with empty arms, a steering
swings open like one of the wheel folds down, letting them
falcon doors on a Tesla Model take control—assuming anyone
X. To enhance that vibe even inside still has a driver’s license.
further, the design team add-
ed color-changing LEDs along
the car’s grill and massive

C O URT ESY M ER C ED ES -B EN Z (2 )

by The Mercedes-Benz Vision Tokyo’s electric hybrid system

ER I C A DAMS can drive 118 miles on batteries and more than 490 miles on
electricity produced by its fuel cells.

16 POPSCI. CO M
 M A R C H /A P R IL 2 0 1 6
Now
YOUR
Ask an Expert

PODCAsT 1 2 3

eMPiRE
MACKIE PROFX4V2 AKG MKII K271 HEIL PR40
When you record a If you want to hear Heil’s dynamic
podcast with a guest, quality sounds (and microphone is a great

AWAitS
it’s important to you’d better before match for a portable
pipe audio through you broadcast it to audio mixer. The dual
separate channels. the world), you need mesh screens allow
This Mackie mixer clear and precise for reliable response
has two microphone headphones. The between 28 Hz and
jacks and 16 sound MKII is legendary for 18 kHz while reducing
It took him 20 years, but Leo Laporte has built a
effects per channel. its noise insulation— any popping sounds.
podcasting empire that rivals the old-school broad- That way you can thanks in part to the Its warm tone makes
casters. He has more than 20 shows (This Week in Tech add things like reverb large ear cups—and it a favorite among
being a must-listen), which reach a combined 5 million (to sound like you’re perfect sound repro- professionals, and
people each month. His California home doubles as his in a large studio) or duction. $199 a tough aluminum
delay (to give you an body means it will
TWiT’s Brick House studio, and is littered with high-
endless goofy repeat). survive life on the
end tech to record, mix, and upload talk-show-quality You can also listen road—and be worth
content. Even if you’re a few podcasts short of an back on studio speak- every penny. $319
empire, this gear will set you on the right track. ers or headphones, by
depending on which M I C H A EL N U Ñ EZ
you prefer. $129

3
I N S E T IM AG E C OU RT ESY L EO LA P O RT E

TiPS fROM lEO

BUILD A COMMUNITY DON’T CHASE AN AUDIENCE TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU LOVE
The approachability of podcasting makes it difficult No one doing a podcast should say in calculated I choose panelists based on whom I’d love to hang
to rise above the noise. This is a question much fashion, “Let’s do something that’s going to make around and chat with. Because on a slow day, when
larger than podcasting; it’s happening across all a lot of money.” It might work short-term, but real there’s no Apple news, we’ll just talk about Star
media. If you can build a community around what successes come from people authentically speaking Wars or whatever. It’s much less agenda-driven than
you do—whether as a podcaster or even video- their truth. In new media, one has to find a voice— a television broadcast. A lot of podcasting is hanging
maker—that community will buoy you and support but we’re only just beginning. We haven’t found the out with your buddies, talking about something
you and grow your audience. Ernie Kovacs of podcasting. you’re interested in.

PH OTO G RA P H BY Brian Klutch P OP SC I . C OM 17

Now MARCH/ APRIL 2016

Trending

360 1

T h at’s how
many degrees
you can
expect to
shoot in from
n ow on .

1 2 3
BU BL’S LUNA KODAK P I X P R O
BU BL CAM SP 3 6 0
The Bublcam’s Xplor Billed as the world’s The Pixpro makes
mobile app allows for smallest 360-degree Kodak moments a lot
previewing, stitching camera, this black more momentous.
(to enable playback), ball looks like the The camera’s app lets
and sharing, right on eye of a robot. A you use your iPhone

ViDEO THAT
your smartphone. waterproof body and or Android device
That’s a much-needed scratch-proof lens as a viewfinder or to
portable solution means it can survive pause recording. And

TURNS HeADS
for road warriors any situation you you don’t have to
everywhere. Android throw it in. Wireless worry about already-
and iPhone users can data transfer and shot video clogging
view their videos in inductive charging your memory. Support
Stop being so one-directional. Today, a raft of new 360-degree VR with the help of means less time for expandable storage
cams provide the most immersive video you can get—short of Google Cardboard. plugging in cables. via microSD cards
putting on a virtual-reality device. Compact and light, they can $799 $375 ensures you have the
capture people, places, and action anywhere. Here are the best space you need for
the shot you want.
options for shooting around. $300
by
X AV I ER H A RD I N G

18 P O PSC I .C O M P HOTOGR A P H BY Brian Klutch

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The Platform

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M A R C H /A P R IL 2 0 1 6
Now
The Platform

eVeRYONE
WilL BE A GAMeR
POPUL AR

Q&A
iN THE fUTURE
SCIENCE

If you haven’t heard of Razer, you’re not spending enough by

M I C H A EL N U Ñ EZ
quality time with your video games. The 10-year-old, $1 billion
company practically invented the gaming-peripherals market.
It doesn’t sell the games; it sells millions of high-tech com-
puter mouses, headphones, and keyboards to the gamerati. To stay focused on the gamers. When
Sort of like the folks who sold pickaxes during the gold rush. we talk to other people about using our
technology—whether they’re focused on
Now, Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan—a self-proclaimed game geek
military or healthcare or space technology
and a former video-game pirate—is looking to expand his —we always say, “We’re happy for you to
empire with the release of a laptop, a streaming device, and a modify and use our products, but we really
virtual-reality headset. Tan recently spoke to Popular Science just want to make products for gamers.”
about his obsession with gaming and the future of playing. Where is gaming headed?
It’s definitely going to be a lot more immer-
How did this all start? Were you always into shooters? sive. And when I say immersive, I don’t
I used to play video games competitively Yeah, but I also liked role-playing games. mean in the sense of what’s happening in
back when e-sports was still called “Pro Wasteland is another game that had a big virtual reality; I mean in the form of what’s
Gaming.” I was living in Korea, and my impact on me. I remember pirating it a long happening with multiplatform games.
friends and I were always looking for a com- time ago. Then one day I met the game
petitive advantage during sessions of Quake director, Brian Fargo. I said, “Dude, I’m really What do you mean?
Content is going to be served up in so many
different places: mobile to PC, PC to console,
PC to wearables. There could be a game that
The future is incredibly bright for sends you text messages, or there could be

gaming. We believe there are 2 billion or Xbox characters who share social-media
interactions with you. The lines are going to
3 billion gamers out there. be incredibly blurred when it comes to how
people interact with games.

So are we still at the tip of the iceberg?

3, Unreal Tournament, and other first- sorry for pirating it.” He loved my story so Absolutely. The future is incredibly bright for
person shooter games. We were willing to much, he made me a character in Waste- gaming. Our biggest bet as a company is that
try anything. We were always talking about land 2. It still blows my mind. I was a total gaming is going to be the biggest form of
how to hack our computer rigs to make fanboy over his work, and it was such a cool entertainment—bigger than movies, bigger
everything a little faster. Keep in mind, all the moment to find out he’s really excited about than music. We believe there are anywhere
mouses and keyboards back then were slow. the work we do. from 2 billion to 3 billion gamers out there.
So we got together with some IT guys and And it’s more accepted than ever. Gaming
engineers and, in 1999, designed a better, What’s the greatest challenge to growing appeals to a basic tenant of human nature:
more responsive mouse. a gaming-hardware company? It’s all about having fun.

PH OTO G RA P H BY Cody Pickens P OP SC I . C OM 21

Now MARCH/ APRIL 2016

Materials

Vittoria uses
graphene
that is two to
eight atoms
thick—nearly
invisible.

They are infinitely tough and elegantly

maneuverable.
Here’s why. Graphene, in its most basic
form, is a sheet of pure carbon just a
single atom thick. It is half the density
of aluminum, which means it’s light and
extremely elastic.
Vittoria uses graphene that is two to
eight atoms thick—nearly invisible. By
adding it to mountain-bike tires, Vittoria
achieves the dream combo of characteris-
tics—light, sticky, and tough—that rubber
can’t on its own. In fact, adding graphene

BiKE TiReS
to rubber creates a tire that changes
depending on how you ride. When riding

THAT CAN
on a straightaway, the tire stays relatively
hard. When braking or cornering, it
softens. Examining how graphene

SURViVE
responds to accelerating and turning
corners, Vittoria constructed them in a

THE HiMAlAYAS
way that allows the top and bottom layers
to react differently during use.
Vittoria can’t say exactly how many
miles to expect from these tires—that
With plenty of tread to spare depends on trial conditions and how
hard you ride. Leading up to and on a
recent trip through Nepal, I put hundreds
of miles on the Morsa and the Mezcal.
VI TTORIA MORSA G + Fellow bikers’ tires lost pressure on a
A ND VITTORIA MEZCAL G + When you’re mountain biking in extreme by daily basis; they’d spin out on a slippery
P R I CE: $70 per tire conditions, you want tires that are light BERNE rock. On descents, the tires gripped on
BROUDY
enough for nimble handling, sticky rock and dirt alike—letting me ride faster
enough to grip rocky and rooty trails, and downhill than I ever have. Quite a few of
tough enough to last. Most can’t do it all: my fellow riders ended up throwing their
Beefy tires have bite, but they’re sluggish; tires in the post-trip trash heap. After
light tires are nimble, but they wear out my 13-day trip, my Morsa and Mezcals
quickly or puncture. were dusty but barely worn, and should
Vittoria’s new Mezcal and Morsa tires still last me for several months more of
eliminate that trade-off once and for all. regular rides.

22 P O P SC I .C OM P HOTOGR A P H BY Brian Klutch

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M ARC H/ A P R I L 20 1 6

The explosion
occurred just
15 seconds after
launch, and the hazard
area stretched for
1,400 square miles.

Wa nt more about Orbital ATK’s next launch? Check out popsci.com/antares.

24 PO PSCI. CO M P HOTOGR AP H BY NASA

ED ITED BY B R EANN A DRAXLER + MATT G ILES

No one ever said rocket science was

easy. In October 2014, a routine delivery
to the International Space Station of a few
thousand pounds of science equipment
and foods blew up just after launch. There
weren’t any injuries, but the accident has
kept the Antares rocket—and its makers,
Orbital ATK—grounded for a year and a
half. A faulty turbopump in one of the main
AJ-26 engines was to blame, so the com-
pany gave Antares a whole new engine,
the RD-181. When the Antares 230 rises
from the ashes in May 2016, it’ll be more
powerful than ever, capable of carrying an
extra 1,300 pounds of cargo.

by
SA R A H F EC H T

15
Cos t , i n
millions of
dol l a rs , o f
repairing
t h e A n ta re s
l au n ch pad in
V i rg i n i a,
which NA SA
and Orbital
ATK share

P OP SC I . C OM 25
Next MARCH/APRIL 201 6

One Giant Leap

WASTE
NOT,
WANT NOT
When bacteria feed on excre-
ment and other waste, what’s
left is sludge. And that sludge
is “a secret goldmine,” says Paul
Westerhoff, an environmental
engineer at Arizona State
University. He means it literally:
Westerhoff estimates that
large quantities of gold, silver,
and other valuable metals seep
into biosolids from a variety of
sources, including industrial
processes and teeth fillings.
Until miners target these
metals, society will keep
flushing millions of dollars
down the toilet. N ICO LE LO U

BY THE NUMBERS

Trojan 57 POUNDS
Horse in Amount of sludge a person
produces annually

the War $550

on Cancer Va lue of metals in a to n
of sludge
by
Your body has an excellent defense system

$8 MILLION
LY DI A C H A I N
for keeping toxins out of the brain: the blood-
brain barrier. But this border patrol also keeps
drugs out, which presents a real problem for
Estimated wo r th of gold and
treating tumors and other maladies. silver that could be mined
In November, a team from Sunnybrook chemotherapy drug to pass through. a n nua l ly f ro m t h e waste o f
Health Sciences Centre in Toronto hacked These holes closed back up hours later. 1 million people
the system by creating temporary new This method could also enable targeted
PAS I EK A / S P L/G ET T Y IM AG ES

$13 MILLION
entrances. Doctors injected microscopic air drug treatments for diseases such as
bubbles into a cancer patient’s bloodstream, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. “It opens
and then focused sound waves onto blood up a whole world of possibilities,” says
vessels near the growth. This caused the neurosurgeon Todd Mainprize, the team’s
bubbles to vibrate violently, poking holes in lead researcher. “We could treat things we E st i m ated wo r t h o f a l l
the barrier just big enough for a couldn’t treat before.” metals that could be mined
a n nua l ly f ro m t h e waste
of 1 million people

26 POPSCI. CO M
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Next MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Geeking Out

Marcia
McNutt
On the Power As told to
M AT T G I L ES
of Discovery
The incoming presi-
dent of the National
Academy of Sciences,
Marcia McNutt, arrives
at the U.S. advisory
agency at a crucial
moment. Technology
is rapidly changing
the nature of research,
and science education
needs to keep pace.
Luckily the marine
geophysicist, whose
term begins in July,
has spent her career
collecting data, track-
ing environments, and
creating models of our
changing world. She’s
pro-curiosity and
bullish about the
impact that big data
could have on
scientific discovery.

7.0
Am ount, in
billions of dollars,
spent outf itting
K-12 cl assrooms
in t h e U.S. with
computers and
tablets in 2014,
according to IDC

28 POPSCI. CO M PHOTOGRAPHY BY Elliot O’Donovan

 Next
Geeking Out

“Children love
Scientists have always been explorers discoveries we will
discovery. We should
make. Adventurers
—they’ve had to go out and brave the
world to make new discoveries. Darwin
won’t have to get a
queen to give them
teach them the
found unusual finches, and that led to a ship to explore
anymore. Every
fundamentals and
the theory of evolution. But with schoolchild could then set them loose.”
advances in computing power, be a digital Lewis
scientists won’t necessarily have to and Clark.
I can’t help but
leave their homes anymore. Future believe we’re on
exploration will start with algorithms. the threshold of
mind-blowing
discoveries about
Explorers can come up with crazy theories, the worlds beyond our solar system.
use computers to sift through our wealth People thought Pluto would be dull, and
of data, and pull the signal out of the its flyby was amazing. We are going to look “For a while, we thought our planet was
noise, answering the questions: ‘What am at planets like Neptune and Jupiter and unique because it was so active, and all of
I looking for here? What is important?’ say, ‘We thought they were interesting, but that activity created energy sources that
By 2023, a single computer’s processing the real variety is out beyond Pluto.’ life needs. But now we see that happening
power will equal that of the entire human There is a very real possibility that in lots of places in our solar system. Maybe
race. If you apply that processing power to we’ll soon learn more about the special we aren’t so different after all. We need to
all the information out there, imagine the conditions that gave rise to life on Earth. keep exploring to find out.”
Next MARCH/APRIL 201 6

The Big Idea

Planet X

OUR The sun’s scorching

heat meant only
the small, dense
planets of our solar
system survived.
ar o
rbit

SOLAR
0 -ye
00
A 20,

SYSTEM
Dwarf planets are a dime a dozen. When
it comes to real planets—bodies with enough
mass to achieve a nearly round shape, clear
nearby debris, and orbit the sun—we know
of only eight in our solar system. Over the
past century, many astronomers claimed to
have caught whiff of an elusive ninth body:

HAS A
Planet X. The latest to make this assertion is
Like the outer gas
the same man who demoted Pluto.
giants, this new one will “We’ve found evidence of a giant planet
likely have a rocky core in the outer solar system,” says Mike Brown,
covered in methane and an astronomer at the California Institute of
nitrogen ices.
Technology. “By ‘giant,’ I mean the size of
Neptune, and by ‘outer solar system,’ I mean

NINTH
10 to 20 times farther away than Pluto.”
What led Brown to this grand announce-
ment was the discovery of an unusual align-
ment of dwarf planets with eccentric orbits.
“You can think of them like hands on a clock,
all moving at different rates,” Brown says.
The chance of this arrangement being coin-
cidental is just 1-in-100, so Brown called on

PLANET
Caltech theoretical astrophysicist Konstantin
Batygin to figure out the forces at play. After
a year of supercomputer simulations, Batygin
says the only explanation is the gravity of a
planet 10 times the mass of Earth.
The team published their mathematical
evidence in January. Alessandro Morbidelli,

And it’s still a planetary scientist at France’s Cote d’Azur

observatory, calls it “the first solid and con-

not Pluto vincing demonstration that there is a planet

that could create this anomaly.” Now they just
need to find Planet X (or Planet 9, as they call
it) in the sky. Brown has already secured
The real deal is 5,000 times more
Pluto telescope time, but he doesn’t want the
massive than the former titleholder,
and a whole lot farther away. search to be a solo
endeavor. “The paper
is a roadmap for anyone
to look,” Brown says.
by “I need to know the an-
SHANNON
ST I RO N E
swer more than I need
to be the discoverer.”
GET MORE ! at popsci .co m / p l a n et-x

30 POP S CI. CO M
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Next This summer, two pilots sandwiched in a
36-inch-wide cabin could take the
Perlan 2 glider to 90,000 feet, higher than
Concepts & Prototypes most aircraft have flown. To reach such
heights, the glider will ride stratospheric
waves—powerful and little-understood
currents that flow over mountain ranges.
It will be flying in uncharted and unstable

Glider with aeronautic territory, and between the rigors

1.
of thin air and blistering ultraviolet radiation, ASSISTED
the slightest miscalculation could be LAUNCH

a Stellar View disastrous. If successful, the Perlan 2 could

expand the parameters of high-altitude
flight, enhance climate science, and provide
A 20 horsepower
tow plane will use
a cable to lift the
glider up to 10,000
new insights on planetary exploration. All feet. Perlan 2’s pilots
without burning a drop of jet fuel. will then detach
from the aircraft and
continue their ascent
using air currents and
by lithium-ion
S H EL BY battery-powered
C A R P EN T ER flight instruments.

PERLAN 2’S SPECS

42 FT

33 F T

32 POPSCI. CO M
 MARCH/ APRIL 201 6

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
TIGHT TREATED UNIQUE STEADY SAFE SCIENCE
QUARTERS WINDOWS WINGS FLYING DESCENT MISSION
Engineers built At 90,000 feet, the Lightweight Along with a control Without an engine to The glider will be
the 3-by-10-foot glider will be exposed carbon-fiber wings stick, pilots will use modulate its speed, the first to collect
pressurized fuselage to the deteriorat- help the glider to fly ailerons and eleva- the Perlan 2 will rely scientific data on
as small as possible ing effects of solar in the low-density tors—the movable on airbrakes, which the powerful—and
to minimize drag and radiation. A coating air of the upper sections of each flip open and create unpredictable—
weight during flight. on the polycarbonate stratosphere. The wing—and a rudder drag to safely land. stratospheric waves.
The cabin is circular windows will absorb airfoil—its aerody- to navigate turbu- In case of a midflight Aviation experts will
(rather than the oval the rays. It will also namically shaped, lence. These help emergency, the pilots use this research to
shape of most air- help protect against 84-foot wingspan— control the glider’s can also deploy an forecast the waves
craft), so air pressure frigid temperatures maximizes efficiency pitch, roll, and yaw. 11-foot-diameter more accurately,
will push equally on and maintain the and provides the drogue parachute, eventually enabling
all sides. Perlan 2’s structural ideal ratio of often used by high- passenger planes to
integrity. If the win- lift to drag. speed aircrafts. operate in the upper
dows crack, the cabin atmosphere, where
will depressurize they could fly farther
and the pilots’ lungs and faster on less
will explode inside fuel (thanks to the
their chests. reduced drag).

“This area has the most intense turbulence outside what you’d get in a
hurricane or a cyclone. It’s like you’re in a washing machine.”
—Morgan Sandercock, project manager

8. 9.
MARTIAN CLIMATE
ANALOG DATA
The glider’s flying The flight has addi-
conditions will be tional scientific
similar to those implications. When
found on Mars, and the waves stretch
the team hopes to high enough, they
share any insights the break, and chemicals
craft gleans from its from the troposphere
flight. “Somebody will are thrust into the
build an airplane for stratosphere, where
Mars someday, and they can remain
we’ll have a wealth of for decades. No one
data for that person,” knows the effects
says Ed Warnock, the of this atmospheric
project’s CEO. cocktail, and whatev-
er data the
Perlan 2 collects
could help sharpen
the forecast of
humanity’s effects
on climate change.
T H E P E R L AN P R O J EC T

P OP SC I . C OM 33
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Next
Tech Trend

Are We Ready for Prior to its discovery in 2013, scientists relied

Designer Babies? on two methods—zinc finger nuclease (ZFN)

and TALENS—to splice DNA at a specific
location. With CRISPR, scientists can make
When Chinese researchers reported using a technique called precise changes much more rapidly, a capa-
CRISPR/Cas9 to edit the genome of human embryos this past April, bility that promises to halt certain diseases
they sparked a worldwide debate over how this technology could and revolutionize the treatment of others.
(or should) be used. Scientists expressed legitimate fears: What are Sickle cell anemia, for example, is
the side effects? Will this open the floodgates to designer humans? caused by a single mutation in the beta
The world’s foremost geneticists, biotechnologists, and bioethicists globin gene. Gang Bao, a bioengineer at Rice
by gathered in Washington, D.C., in December to address those questions University, is among the researchers working
CLAIR E and map the future of human-gene editing. with CRISPR to edit out this mutation. The
M A LDAR E LLI CRISPR isn’t the first genome-editing tool, but it is by far the best. gene will be modified in a somatic cell, which
means that any change made to it affects
only the individual and can’t be inherited.
“Those modified stem cells have a finite life

86
span,” Bao says, “and won’t be passed on to
the patient’s children.”
What gives scientists pause are edits to
germline cells (i.e., sperm and eggs). It’s one
thing to pass down a cure for a disease; it’s
another to propagate unintended side effects.
Number of human embryos
CRISPR can accidentally edit genes that
a Chinese team edited last
have a DNA sequence similar to its target, as
year to alter the gene HBB,
happened with the Chinese team’s embryos.
wh ich can cause a fata l
“If off-target effects accumulate in germline
b l oo d disorder
cells,” Bao says, “there might be permanent
changes in the human genome.”

“CRISPR’s potential to treat

human diseases is very high, but
so is its potential damage.”
—Gang Bao, bioengineer at Rice University

In order to better assess the risks,

scientists at the December summit agreed
that basic research should progress. But they
essentially called for a moratorium on editing
human embryos for pregnancies. George
Daley, director of the stem cell transplanta-
tion program at Boston Children’s Hospital,
says CRISPR is still too unpredictable for a
baby to be brought to term. “But the science
S A B I NE S C H EC K EL / GE T T Y I M AG ES

is essential for informing the debate,” he says.

Such conversations can’t just occur
within the walls of a conference center. As
CRISPR’s power comes into focus, pub-
lic discussion should proceed in tandem.
Without societal buy-in, Daley says, gene-
editing research could be misunderstood or
condemned—and that would undermine its
many potentially life-changing benefits.

POPSC I .C OM 35
Next
Coordinates

NERD BOX:
The area of each country rep-
resents the total forest cover,
in acres.*
Each country is colored by the
amount of change its forests
have undergone since 1990. Canada

GROWTH
Greater than 1%
Between 0.3% and 1%
Between 0.1% and 0.3%
LITTLE TO United States
NO CHANGE
LOSS Dominican Republic
Between 0.1% and 0.3%
Between 0.3% and 1% Belize
Greater than 1% Mexico Guyana
Cuba
French Guiana
Guatemala Venezuela
Honduras
Costa Rica
Panama Colombia

The Equador
Suriname

Future of
Peru
Brazil

Trees is Bolivia

Looking Up Paraguay

In September, the Food and Agriculture Uruguay

by Organization released a rare bit of good news:
BREA NNA Chile Argentina
DRAXL ER
The global rate of forest loss has dropped
50 percent in five years.
In northern regions, commercial planting
has even expanded forests. “The only way to
supply things like amazon.com packages and
toilet paper is tree plantations,” says Kenneth
MacDicken, a former FAO senior forestry
officer, who led the report. Not all countries are
sighing with relief, though. In the southern ECUADOR BRAZIL
tropics, where forest clearing can be a matter 210,000 acres/year 5.7 million acres/year
of human survival, the practice continues. Yes, its forested area With massive tracts in
Climate change exacerbates the stress continues to drop, private hands, Brazil’s
but Ecuador cut its forest is particularly
on forests, says Mary Wagner, associate rate of natural forest vulnerable. But a law
chief of the U.S. Forest Service, leading to loss in half by paying now requires that
drought, wildfires, invasive species, and landowners to maintain landowners retain
According to the FAO, a forest’s beneficial 80 percent of their
disease outbreaks. functions, such as car- property as forest.
the forest industry, Fortunately advances in data collection bon sequestration and “That means they can’t
like logging and and remote-sensing put foresters in a good water filtration. “Water convert everything to
paper products, adds position to find solutions. “We’ve never doesn’t come from a rangeland or farmland,”
$600 billion annually faucet,” Wagner says. “It MacDicken says.
been better prepared for managing forests,” comes from a forest.”
to t h e global GDP. MacDicken says.

36 POPSCI. CO M *Countries with less than 1 million acres of forest area are omitted.
 In 2015, the amount, by area, of the global fo rest
MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6

7% cover that was planted rather than natura l

Sweden Finland

Norway

United Russia
Kingdom
Germany Poland Belarus

Mongolia
France North
Ukraine
Spain Georgia Kazakhstan Korea
Romania Azerbaijan
Austria
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Portugal Tunisia Italy Greece Pakistan Japan
Turkey
Bhutan
Algeria Nepal
Morocco Sudan Iran South Korea
Afghanistan
Senegal Mali Chad Central China
African
Nigeria Republic South Sudan Vietnam
India Bangladesh Laos Philippines
Eritrea
Ethiopia Myanmar
Somalia
Congo Thailand Papua New Guinea
Ivory Coast Cambodia
Cameroon Sri Lanka
Kenya Solomon Islands
Malaysia
Gabon
Republic of Congo Tanzania
Malawi Indonesia
Zambia
Angola
Madagascar

Namibia Australia
Mozambique
Zimbabwe
South Africa Botswana

New Zealand

UNITED STATES EUROPE SOUTH AFRICA INDIA CHINA INDONESIA

S O U R C E: © FAO 2 01 5 “G LO BA L FO R EST
R ES O U R C ES ASS ESS ME N T,” AC C ESSE D

760,000 acres/year 2.1 million acres/year Holding steady 670,000 acres/year 5.1 million acres/year 2.7 million acres/year
Because of increasing Despite sweeping Pulp and paper A rapidly expanding China’s immense A highly decentralized
urbanization, 83 percent historical deforestation, companies in South rural population in investment in planting government dispersed
of the U.S. population much of the European Africa have established India means more forests—enacted to across the country’s
now lives in a city. While continent is on the a profitable tree- people are relying on stop the expansion thousands of islands
the U.S. boasts nearly upswing thanks to plantation industry. wood for fuel. And that of the Gobi Desert as makes monitoring
477 million acres of secondary-forest growth. But, as is the case with has led to more small well as the increase of forests difficult. A
S EPT EMB E R 2 9 , 2 0 15

public forests, Wagner “Europe has relatively many developing coun- farmers planting trees carbon dioxide in the whole-log export ban
points out that its 321 little natural forest left, tries, access to water for additional income. atmosphere—is paying brings some economic
million acres of urban but you’d never know limits expansion. “Fast-growing, short- off. Coupled with relief via job creation:
forests are perhaps that,” MacDicken says. rotation tree plantations natural progress, China’s When trees are cut
more impressive. “The planted forests reduce the pressure forested acreage has down, the lumber must
are well-managed, on natural forests,” grown tremendously at least be processed
well-maintained, and MacDicken explains. in recent years. locally before export.
getting on in years.”

DATA VIS UA LIZAT IO N BY TULP Interactive P OP SC I . C OM 37

Next MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Decoded

“Self-healing materials might

revolutionize how we manufacture
and repair plastic.”
—MELI K DEMI REL, P ENN SYLVAN I A STATE UNI V ERSI T Y

Time series showing

two healing agents
(dyed red and blue)
mixing and hardening to
fill a hole in a polymer.

Plastic
With
Smarts by COR IN N E IOZZ IO

Forty years ago, plastic surpassed steel as the most

widely used material in the world. Sure, the affordable
and malleable polymers have brought plenty of
convenience to modern life (Tupperware! Teflon! Velcro!) heat and pressure. Its proteins mimic
as well as taking on more-vital roles, in airplanes, cars, those of squid teeth, which heal them-
selves by reconnecting broken hydrogen
and smartphones. There’s a catch, however: bonds. “Hydrogen bonding is how nature
Unlike many of the metals it replaces, metal structures. “Scratches compromise puts everything together,” Demirel says,
plastic is really hard to fix; even invisible traditional coatings,” Sottos says, which so the mended material is restored to its
fractures can compromise its strength. can lead to rust. An early self-healing original chemical makeup and therefore
A new class of smart plastics can heal plastic, now sold by spinoff company regains its original strength. So far, his
breaches all on their own, to mend cracked Autonomic Materials, has microcapsules team has fixed dog chew toys and mock
phone screens or stitch up airplane wings. embedded throughout it. When the plastic Legos. In the future, the method could
Nancy Sottos helped pioneer this field cracks, the capsules burst, releasing resin repair deep-sea fiber-optic cables.

C O URT ESY N AT HA N BA J AN DAS , BEC K M A N I N ST I T U T E , U I UC

in the ’90s. Her team at the University of and a catalyst, which react to fill the crack. Eventually, self-healing plastics could
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has For things made entirely of composites, go to space. Scott Zavada, a polymer sci-
developed composites that can repair like car bumpers or airplane wings, micro- entist at the University of Michigan, devised
themselves using a range of methods. One capsules won’t cut it. Once the capsules one that sandwiches an air-reactive liquid
extends the life span of ships, bridges, and are spent, no more healing can occur between layers of polymer. When the poly-
windmills by repairing plastic coatings on there. One of Sottos’ newest composites mer gets punctured, air inside the vessel
is laced with channels that can deliver the reacts with the liquid, hardening it in less
self-healing agent to fill cracks again and than a second. It could someday seal holes
again. The material was able to heal the punched in Mars habitats by flying debris.

0.4
same spot 30 times in the lab. But Sottos Going forward, Sottos has her eye on
says it could be 20 years before it’s reli- what she calls “forever material.” Our
able enough for safety-critical applications bodies and other natural systems regener-
(i.e., we’ll have self-healing bumpers long ate themselves again and again yet never
before self-healing airplanes). really change shape. So she wonders if
Diameter, in inches, of a hole that Materials in extreme environments polymers could one-up nature: “What if
current ve rs ions of self-healing plastic require even more ingenuity. Instead of you had a material that didn’t age?”
can successfully repair relying on an onboard catalyst, engineer
Melik Demirel of Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity created a polymer whose healing
38 POPSCI. CO M reaction is triggered by water, along with
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 EXCLUSIVE

BOBAMA
INTERVIEW

PRESIDENT

ARACK
ON HOW TO WIN THE

FUTURE
Questions & Answers with Popular Science

Along with running the free world, President Barack Obama has spent
the past seven years guiding U.S. science and technology policy. The BY CLIFF RANSOM
initiatives and goals he puts in place—in clean energy, space, med-
icine, education, nanotechnology, and more—help direct research,
which in turn directs the future. With one year left in the Oval Office,
the president talks about what he’s achieved, what’s left to do (a lot), PHOTOGRAPHY BY
and why being a nerd is one of the best ways to serve your country. F. SCOTT SCHAFER

40 PO P S CI. CO M
PR ES I D E NT BA RAC K O BAMA
PS: Let’s talk about more-difficult
science: Two of your biggest science
initiatives have been to decode the brain
and pioneer precision medicine. Why
choose these two?
BO: When it comes to precision medicine,
advances in technology, data science, and clin-
PS: You have been a very pro-science why we wouldn’t build a real-life Death Star, ical research are already curing diseases that
president. Why do you see science and so I’d like to think I have at least a little nerd were once thought to be incurable. It’s entirely
technology as being so important? credibility built up. possible that a decade or two from now, treat-
BO: Science and technology helped make  What’s remarkable is the way “nerd” is ments would be tailored not just to the disease,
America the greatest country on Earth. Wheth- such a badge of honor now. Growing up, I’m but also to the individual patient. We’re being
er it’s setting foot on the moon, developing a sure I wasn’t the only kid who read Spider- careful to protect patient data and to make
vaccine for polio, inventing the Internet, or Man comics and learned how to do the Vulcan participants partners in this work. Because if
building the world’s strongest military, we’ve salute, but it wasn’t like it is today. I get the we embrace precision medicine in the right
relied on innovative scientists, technologists, sense that today’s young people are proud to way, the possibilities for better treatments are
engineers, and mathematicians to help us tack- be smart and curious, to design new things, practically endless.
le the toughest challenges of our time. and tackle big problems in unexpected ways. I  The BRAIN Initiative is another project
In my first inaugural address, I promised think America’s a nerdier country than it was whose time has come. Right now, we can
that my administration would restore science when I was a kid—and that’s a good thing! identify galaxies billions of light-years away. We
to its rightful place, and that’s exactly what can study particles smaller than an atom. But
we’ve done. We’ve expanded clean-energy PS: You also put heavy emphasis on we still haven’t unlocked the mystery of the
research; we’ve launched major initiatives developing innovation and entrepreneur- 3 pounds of matter that sits between our
in advanced manufacturing, biomedicine, ship. How do you make Silicon Valley ears. I believe that with America leading the
and strategic computing; we’ve increased happen all over the country? way, we can change that. Hundreds of scien-
preparedness and resilience against climate BO: Innovation and entrepreneurship are al- tists and dozens of universities, companies,
change; and we’re training STEM [science, ready happening all over the country. New foundations, and other organizations have
technology, engineering, and math] teachers technologies like cloud computing, big data, stepped up to help us tackle this challenge.
so every child grows up with the skills they and 3-D printing are lowering barriers to
need to compete in the 21st century. Being entry. And you can now collaborate with part- PS: You’ve also advocated the develop-
pro-science is the only way we make sure that ners around the country or across the world, ment of a private space industry to work
America continues to lead the alongside and complement
world. Our policies reflect that.  government efforts. What is
your vision for space explora-
PS: Among your White House WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE ARE EXCITED ABOUT tion and commercialization?
initiatives, you’ve focused SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, Who does what?    
heavily on improving STEM AND MATH, THAT'S NOT JUST GOOD FOR THEM. BO: I’ve laid out a vision for space
education in America. What’s THAT'S GOOD FOR AMERICA. exploration where our astronauts
your proudest achievement travel out into the solar system not
on that front? just to visit, but to stay. To build
BO: There’s a lot to be proud a sustainable human presence
of. We now graduate 25,000 more engineers practically at the speed of light. So no matter in space, we’ll need a thriving private-sector
per year from our colleges and universities where you live, there has simply never been a space economy. I see the expanding space
than we did when I took office. We’re more better time to launch an idea and bring it to industry as an addition to, not a replacement
than halfway toward our goal of preparing scale in America. for, the extraordinary work of NASA. With in-
100,000 new math and science teachers by  Of course, we’re working to make it even dustry taking over tasks like ferrying cargo and
2021. We’ve secured more than $1 billion easier for entrepreneurs. No matter who you crew to the International Space Station, NASA
of private investment for improving STEM are, what you look like, or what ZIP code can focus even more intensely on the most
education, and commitments from college you’re born into, if you work hard, you should challenging exploration missions, like landing
and university leadership to help underrepre- have the chance to go as far as your talent astronauts on Mars or learning more about
sented students earn STEM degrees. There’s takes you. That’s why our TechHire initiative, Earth and the rest of our solar system.
also something that’s harder to measure, but which works to place more Americans in As we set our sights toward other planets,
every bit as important: all the young people, well-paid tech jobs, has expanded to 35 cities, we can also create good jobs here on this
including minorities and young women, who states, and counties. It’s also why we hosted one. American companies have begun to
are more excited than ever about pursuing the first-ever Demo Day and Maker Faire at the reclaim the lucrative market for launching
their passions for STEM.    White House. I’m going to go out on a limb commercial satellites. That’s just one example
 One of the new traditions I’ve started as and say I’m the first president to welcome a of the way that a growing space economy can
president is the White House Science Fair. We 17-foot-tall robotic giraffe onto his lawn. help American workers succeed. 
ought to celebrate science fair winners at least  Some of the most inspiring scientists,
as much as Super Bowl winners. And when entrepreneurs, and inventors I meet are also PS: If you were to end up on Mars, who
young people are excited about science, tech- some of the youngest. Elana Simon presented would you want as your companion:
nology, engineering, and math, that’s not just her work at one of our science fairs. At age 12, Mark Watney from The Martian, or Ellen
good for them. That’s good for America. We Elana survived a rare form of liver cancer. She Ripley from Alien?
want the next game-changing industry or teamed up with one of her surgeons to gather BO: As long as it’s a hypothetical question,
life-saving breakthrough to happen right here data about her disease from across the country can’t I pick both? If I’ve got Matt Damon grow-
in the United States. and discovered a common genetic mutation ing potatoes and Sigourney Weaver taking care
across the samples she collected—all before of any unwelcome intruders, I like my chances. 
PS: Do you consider yourself a nerd and, graduating high school. That’s the kind of story
if so, what’s your nerdiest pastime? we want to see more of, from every part of PS: It’s been barely two months since a
BO: Well, my administration did write a pretty America. And I have no doubt that, thanks in climate agreement was struck in Paris.
detailed response to a petition, explaining part to our policies, we will.  How do you think the agreement will be
remembered 20 years from now?
BO: I believe the Paris agreement can be a
turning point for our planet. It’s the biggest
single step the world has ever taken toward
42 PO PSCI. CO M
combating global climate change. When I
traveled to Paris at the beginning of the climate
conference, I said we needed an enduring
agreement that reduces global carbon emis-
sions and commits the world to a low-carbon
future. That’s exactly what we achieved. 
The American people should be proud
because this historic agreement is a tribute to
American leadership. The skeptics said that
taking action to transition to a clean-energy
economy would kill jobs. Instead, we’ve seen
the longest streak of private-sector job creation
in history. We’ve driven our economic output
to all-time highs, while driving our carbon pol-
lution to its lowest level in nearly two decades. 
 These kinds of concrete steps helped bring
more countries to the table. With our historic
joint announcement with China last year, we
showed it was possible to bridge the old divides
between developed and developing nations that
had stymied global progress for too long. And
that accomplishment inspired dozens and
dozens of other nations to follow our lead and
set ambitious climate targets of their own. 

PS: Some wonder if the Paris agreement

will truly forestall climate change. Do
you think it goes far enough?
BO: No agreement is perfect, including this
one. But the Paris agreement is the enduring
framework the world needs. It will mean less
of the carbon pollution that threatens our
planet, and more jobs and economic growth
driven by low-carbon investment. And it will
reduce or delay many of climate change’s most
damaging effects. 
 As strong as it is, this agreement will not,
on its own, prevent those effects entirely. And
so the end of the Paris conference is by no
means the end of our work. In fact, now we
must begin the next phase: investing in the
President Obama, photographed on Ja nuary 4 at the White House
technologies and unleashing the innovations
so we can continue on the path to meet the
targets we’ve set today. That means our
governments, our scientists, our businesses,
our workers, our investors—everyone working PS: What would you say to the few America into the global leader in fighting
together to build a low-carbon future and the climate-change deniers left in Congress climate change. We’ve set new fuel standards
new jobs and industries that it will gener- and outside it? for cars and trucks, invested more than any
ate. And because countries agreed to come BO: Fifteen of the planet’s 16 warmest years administration in history in growing industries
back to the table every five years, we’ll have have come in the first 16 years of the 21st cen- like wind and solar, taken unprecedented steps
the chance to set even more-ambitious targets tury. The warmest year yet was 2015. The to protect our natural resources, and set limits
in the years to come.  Pentagon is warning us that climate change will on the amount of carbon pollution that power
threaten our national security by fostering  plants can dump into the air. Most important,
PS: What do you see as your adminis- instability overseas. Here at home, we’re see- we’ve proved that we don’t have to choose
tration’s greatest achievement when it ing longer and more dangerous wildfire between a growing economy and a safer planet
comes to climate science? seasons, coupled with devastating droughts. for future generations. We can have both.
BO: Before you can solve a problem, you have Last year I visited Alaska, where towns are But in the end, when I think about our
to understand it. That’s why we’ve fought literally being swallowed up by rising sea efforts to combat climate change, I don’t just
hard to protect the funding for the U.S. Global levels. Miami now routinely floods at high tide.  think about CO2 -emissions levels or degrees of
Change Research Program, a government-wide  So this debate is over. The question now global temperature rise. I think about my two
effort to help us see what’s happening in the is what we do about climate change because girls, and the grandchildren I’d hope to have
present so we can better predict the future.  there is such a thing as being too late. And I one day. I imagine myself pushing a little boy or
Thanks to their efforts, our satellites, aircraft, think that regardless of their party, if candi- girl on a swing set, out in the open air, looking
ships, buoys, and terrestrial-monitoring dates for elected office want to resign your up at the sun. In that moment, I want to know
systems are providing indispensable insights children and grandchildren to a world that’s that the planet’s going to be in pretty good
and strengthening the models that tell us what broken beyond repair, then there’s simply no shape. And I want to have contributed to that.  
to expect going forward.  way they deserve your vote.   Because that’s our goal: to leave behind a
 My administration hasn’t just helped to better, safer, more prosperous world for our
advance climate science—we’ve also made good PS: One last question on climate: Do you kids and grandkids. That’s our most important
use of the results. We used the most up-to-date think you’ve done enough? mission in the time we have on Earth. And
insights from climate science as the basis of BO: Well, here’s what we’ve done. Over after seven years as president, I’ve never been
our national Climate Action Plan. And we’ve the past seven years, we have transformed more confident that together, we’ll succeed.
begun to develop accessible climate databases
and tools that help governments, businesses,
and citizens protect themselves from the effects
of climate change that we can’t avoid. 
P OP SC I . C OM 43
 HOW TO

Live
Forever*
Want more
birthdays?
Science
can help.
BY BROOKE BOREL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE VOORHES

*Or at least long enough to set off a fire alarm

44 P O PSC I .C OM
 MARCH/ APRIL 2016

W
We’ve long been drawn
to immortality, or at
least a version of it.
In the 16th century,
Spanish explorer Juan
Ponce de León allegedly
searched for the Foun-
tain of Youth. Even
further back, in Greek
mythology, ambrosia
granted eternal life.
We’re still searching
for ways to hit the bi-
ological pause button,
but today’s scientists
have a more practical
approach: They hope
to stall aging to prevent
the diseases that so
often come with it. If
they succeed, we’ll not
only live longer, we will
also be healthier and
more youthful. Here’s
what we know now that
Ponce de León didn’t.

P OP S C I. C OM 45
Longevity / HOW W E AGE

A question ANIMAL
LESSONS
The average life spans of

of tıme
animals vary wildly from ours,
but the mechanisms involved
for each appear to be different.
“There are multiple roads to lon-
gevity,” says Vadim Gladyshev,
a geneticist at Harvard Medical
Life is destructive. Our environment and our in- School. Identifying strategies
that nature uses to alter life span
ternal functions all wear and tear at our body over could help scientists figure out
time. Evolutionarily speaking, natural selection how to extend human lives.
rewards those who can survive such hardship. So
why don’t we live forever—why age at all? BRANDT’S BATS
There have been numerous attempts The rate of aging in humans and Despite weighing only about as much
as a nickel, Brandt’s bats can live as
to understand how and why we age—as other mammals, Austad says, might be many as 41 years in the wild. In 2013,
recently as 1990, the biologist Zhores determined by how quickly we have Gladyshev and colleagues found
Medvedev tallied more than 300 to reproduce before we’re killed off by changes to genes that alter the ani-
mal’s response to growth hormones.
possible hypotheses. But according to other factors. In general, the smaller the
Steven Austad, a biogerontologist at the animal and the more hostile its environ-
University of Alabama at Birmingham, ment, the shorter it lives. A field mouse,
one explanation has risen to the top: for example, must breed before a hawk BOWHEAD WHALE
Possibly topping out at older than 200,
“Reproduction is the name of the game. snatches it up, and so its organs and im- the bowhead whale is the longest-
Basically, we age because it’s not in mune system don’t need to last 50 years. lived mammal known. In 2015, a team
nature’s best interest to perfectly repair On the flip side, elephants have few of scientists found genetic variations
relevant to aging, cancer protection,
our bodies. The main thing is to keep threats, so their bodies can keep going cell-cycle regulation, and DNA repair.
us reproductive as long as possible, and for decades. “In an evolutionary sense,”
then let our bodies deteriorate.” says Austad, “that is the timekeeper.”

NAKED MOLE RAT

Hairless and wrinkled, naked mole
rats can live to be 30 years old—many
ANNALS OF THE GOLDEN-AGER times the life span of other rodents. In

EXTRA CANDLES FOR THE CAKE 2014, research led by the University
of Liverpool found changes in the rat’s
genome related to cancer resistance.

Expected age of death for 65-year-olds Since 1900, average U.S. life expectancy has risen
90 from 47 to 79. A lot of those gains come from a
Sweden lower infant-mortality rate: A century ago, 1-in-10
France babies born in the U.S. died before age 1, while today OCEAN QUAHOG
LI FE EX P EC TA N C Y AT AGE 6 5 FR O M LIFETABLE.DE

Japan that figure is 1-in-170. But longevity gains in later In 2006, researchers found an ocean
United States years have also been substantial. This chart shows quahog thought to be 507 years old.
85 the expected age of death for those who make it to “That is pretty remarkable when you
65. All four nations shown here have gained about figure that clams have beating hearts,”
a decade. Women have also outpaced men, a trend says Austad. His lab is looking for the
Andrew Noymer, a demographer at the University reason its proteins can last so long.
80 of California at Irvine, ascribes to higher rates of
smoking and drinking among males. In the past few
decades, men have been closing the gap—meaning
Women more golden years for everyone. K ATIE P EEK
75 Years women outlive men, on average HYDRA
4 The freshwater hydra seems, under
Men ideal conditions, to be immortal. It
2 also has a seemingly endless supply of
stem cells. German researchers have
70 0 linked a longevity gene, also found in
1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 humans, to stem-cell production.

46 POP S CI. CO M
 M A RC H/ A P RI L 20 1 6

“Longevity is one of the

most exciting areas of research
because it really takes
into account every aspect
of a human being.”
—Winifred Rossi, National Institute on Aging

Tor toises ty pically

live well past 100 and
might be able to
survive even longer.
In 2006, a giant
tor toise thought to be
255 years old died at
I n dia’s Calcu tta Zoo.

305
Number of known
genes that might
be associated with
aging, of the
roughly 20,000
humans possess
Longevity / WHAT WE LE AR NE D

Slow aging, CELL

stave SERVICE
Aging starts in a fundamental
part of our bodies: our cells.

off disease
Scientists have identified several
processes that all play a role in
how cells break down.
CUT SHORT
The end of each chromosome is
capped with a protective bit of DNA
SOME EXPERTS on aging think we’re at the called a telomere. As a cell ages, the
telomere shortens; once it reaches a
cusp of a medical revolution. The current critical length, the cell stops dividing.

model for treating diseases such as cancer, ZOMBIE CELLS

Some cells enter a state called senes-
diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular cence—they stop dividing but resist
death, producing inflammatory signals
disease is to attack each as they pop up. that harm healthy tissues.

It’s a game of healthcare Whac-A-Mole of the Buck Institute for Research on TRASH PILEUP
Cells normally perform autophagy,
that might help people live longer but at Aging in California. “If we can target ag- eating up damaged proteins and other
great cost to their quality of life. A new ing, then we can extend human health debris. But eventually this process
jams up and trash overwhelms them.
approach tackles the key risk factor in span, keeping people disease-free and
all these illnesses: age. high-functioning.” FAILED ASSASSINS
“Once you are broken, it is hard to put That would give people more time In order to delete damaged DNA, cells
go through apoptosis: programmed
you back together,” says Brian Kennedy, when it matters most—when they’re death. But some older cells don’t actu-
a molecular biologist and president feeling youthful enough to enjoy it. ally die, possibly one cause of cancer.

FACTORY HALT
Many organs contain adult stem
cells that help regenerate and repair
damaged tissues. But as we age, they

Take It woodpecker and use your head.

Don’t overeat. And lay off all
can cease functioning or dwindle.

SHAKY GENES
from Me, these doggone carbonated
drinks. I eat two meals a day
DNA constantly faces damage, both
from internal glitches and external in-
fluences. Over time genetic casualties

107-Year- and snack a little in the middle.

I drink lots of water—it keeps
your innards lubricated—and I
pile up, and our cells can’t repair them.

Old Pauline don’t have many wrinkles on my face.

I think it is so important to enjoy
Angleman what you have. You can kill yourself EN DGA ME
worrying or being envious or just plain
OVER AND OUT
J OE WOL FC A LE /M A R IN S C O PE . C O M

I WAS BORN on October 4, 1908. I grew ungrateful. And worry is what brings on
up on a farm with the biggest red barn illnesses like cancer and heart problems. In 1961, cell biologist Leonard Hay-
in western Oklahoma. The farm life is a Every age has been my favorite. I’ve flick showed that human fetal cells
kept in the lab divide only a certain
good life—you eat better, get up earlier, had my picture taken so many times, number of times before they die. The
work, and play. You get fresh air and you could paper the White House with so-called Hayflick limit seems to play
you walk all the time; you’re not always it. I have a few aches and pains, but a role in cellular aging, but it’s not yet
clear how. Some cells, such as cancer,
riding something. It was a healthier life, not enough to stop me yet. I have a red can circumvent the limit and divide in-
I think, than most people live now. Chevrolet Malibu Maxx and my driver’s definitely—possibly via an enzyme that
prevents telomeres from shortening.
People just need to use their common license is good until 2018. Neighbors tell
sense and don’t overdo on everything. me I’m going to wear out my garage door.
As my grandma used to say, be like the —A S TOLD TO J ENNIFER BO GO

48 PO P S CI. CO M
TIMELINE
AGING
THROUGH
THE AGES
1513 Juan Ponce de León
allegedly seeks the Fountain
of Youth in Florida.

1750 Average global life

expectancy is roughly 27.*

1800s Refrigeration makes it

less likely food will spoil—no
more deadly meat snacks.

1864 Pasteurization kills

pathogens in milk and juice;
the world safely drinks up.

19 00s Sanitation improves in

Europe, North America, and
Japan. Goodbye, cholera.

19 2 8 Penicillin kicks off the

age of antibiotics, sending
deadly bacteria on the run.

19 35 Scientists suggest that

restricting calories (bum-
mer!) might boost life span.

19 49 U.S. formalizes vacci-

nation programs. Kids are
free to play with rusty nails.

19 50-19 55 Average global

life expectancy rises to 47.

19 61 Researchers say anti-

oxidants might extend lives.
Good news for vitamin sales.

19 70-19 75 Average global

life expectancy hits 58.

19 80s Caloric restriction

helps mice live longer.

19 88 First gene related to

aging is found—in a worm.

19 9 0-19 9 5 Average global

life expectancy reaches 65.

2 000s Several journal

articles nix the idea that
antioxidants boost longevity.

2 010 As it turns out, some

mice live longer with fewer
calories; others, not so much.

2 010-2 015 Average global

life expectancy climbs to 70.

2 014 New trials on rapa-

mycin and metformin—two
drugs shown to extend the
lives of mice—begin.

2 015 Tourists flock to Ponce

de León’s Fountain of Youth
Archaeological Park. Still no
magical water source.

*Source: A Concise History of

World Population. Life expectan-
cies after 1750 from the United
Nations Population Division.

P OP SC I . C OM 49
Longevity / WHAT TO D O ABO U T I T
H A P PY R ETU R NS
THE DEEP END
OF THE GENE POOL

How to Clues to longevity might lie in the healthiest longest-lived

people among us. Boston University researchers have
been studying centenarians—people 100 years of age or
older—since the mid-1990s. Their findings suggest that
most people have the genetic makeup to live well into

live long
their 80s if they take care of their health. Centenarians,
on the other hand, have the added bonus of protective
genes—so far researchers have counted more than 100.

& prosper Take Two

and Call
The advice for living longer hasn’t varied much Me in
over the years: Eat well, get some sleep and exer-
cise, and cut the stress. Science backs that up. a Decade
Scientists have discovered
But exactly how much of each matters people benefit more than others. If we several new drugs—or new uses
to an individual person is still unclear. could understand that too, it would be a for old drugs—that might help
“In general, these things are good big advance in the field.” increase health span or life span.
for you,” says Charlotte Peterson, a But there’s no point waiting. Here’s They haven’t undergone safety
molecular and cellular biologist at the what the latest science says and some testing yet, so don’t try at home!
University of Kentucky, “but some tools to help you hack your habits.
METFORMIN
Used to treat diabetes, metformin
helps the body metabolize glucose.
It might also slow cellular aging and
curb age-related illness. A pilot study
E AT C AT C H GET RELAX on its impact on aging in humans,
led by researchers at Albert Einstein
GOOD SOME M O V I N G Science Says: While
short-term stress can
College of Medicine, is now underway.

STUFF Z’S Science Says: Exercise

can decrease your risk of
help you maintain a
healthy immune sys-
RAPAMYCIN
To prevent organ rejection, rapamycin
tem, chronic stress in- has been given to kidney-transplant
Science Says: Recent Science Says: We now cardiovascular disease,
creases the risk of heart patients for decades. Recent research
research helps shed know that chronic sleep diabetes, and some can-
disease, gastrointestinal suggests the drug affects the same
light on why certain deprivation increases cers; it also might help
issues, and diabetes; it enzyme pathway as caloric restriction
food staples keep you risk of age-related you live longer. So far,
also causes wounds to and so provides the same benefits to
healthy longer. A 2015 diseases such as scientists don’t know
heal more slowly. Re- longevity (without having to diet). A tri-
study from the Universi- cancer, diabetes, heart what gives exercise its
search from Ohio State al testing the drug in dogs has begun
ty of Iowa, for example, disease, stroke, and protective quality. But
University in 2013 found at the University of Washington.
found there’s something hypertension. A 2014 last year the National
Institutes of Health an- that people who care for
to the old adage about study by researchers at
nounced a $170 million spouses with dementia, SENOLY TICS
an apple a day keeping the Federal Univer- Discovered last year by scientists from
investment in research a stressful responsibil-
the doctor away: Ursolic sity of São Paulo in Mayo Clinic and the Scripps Research
that will attempt to find ity, might have immune
acid, a compound in Brazil showed that older Institute, senolytics kill senescent
the answer. systems that age at an
apple peels, seems to adults have a higher cells while having little effect on
accelerated rate.
stave off muscle weak- chance of experiencing healthy ones. They have been shown
ness in elderly mice. sleep disorders. Tech Hack: It can be
Tech Hack: Wearable to extend the health span of mice.
hard to motivate your-
self to hit the gym, but monitors like the Spire
Tech Hack: Apps like Tech Hack: Health
the social component of tracker detect signs YOUNG BLOOD
MyFitnessPal, Nutrino, trackers from Jawbone Scientists have long known that
fitness apps can help— of stress and can prod
and Fooducate can help and BodyMedia include stitching the circulatory systems of
particularly if you’re you to take a break. The
track meals and provide sleep monitors, which young mice to old mice can improve
competing with friends Bluetooth-enabled
information on ingre- record how many times the health of the latter. Now they have
or family. A 2015 study Muse headset mea-
dients and calories. Or you wake at night and begun to study this effect in humans:
from the University of sures electrical activity
hack your diet with a how much time you In 2015, the company Alkahest began
Tampere in Finland in the brain and provides
supercomputer: The spend in deep sleep. a trial to learn how young blood af-
found that gamification real-time feedback as
Chef Watson app offers Mining that data for fects people with Alzheimer’s disease.
helps boost and sustain it guides you through
recipes for whatever patterns can link poor
regular exercise. meditation sessions.
produce is in your fridge. sleep to specific habits.

50 PO P S CI. CO M
 QUIZ
HOW LONG
WILL I LIVE?
The following quiz, based on behaviors
of the long-lived Seventh Day Adventists,
is adapted from one created by Thomas
Perls, a geriatrics specialist at Boston Uni-
versity. It’s good, not perfect. “People will
write to me and say, ‘I love the calculator,
but it says I should be dead,’” Perls says.
“I say, ‘This probably means you had some
pretty bad behaviors in the past, but the
good news is you have fantastic genes that
protected you from them.’”
For the following test,
start at 86 if you’re male
and 89 if you’re female.
(Sorry, fellas: Women typi-
cally live longer than men.)

Do you have a Zen-like

attitude that makes it
easy to shake stress? If
yes, add five years. If no,
subtract five.

Do you have family mem-

bers who’ve lived to 95 or
older? If yes, add 10 years.
If no, don’t add or subtract
anything.

Do you exercise five days

a week for at least 30
minutes? If yes, add five
years. If no, subtract five.

Are you regularly pre-

senting your brain with
interesting or challeng-
ing tasks, such as word
or math puzzles or active
learning? If yes, add five
years. If no, don’t add or
subtract anything.

Does your diet help

you maintain a healthy
weight so you don’t feel
slowed down or unwell?
If yes, don’t add anything. If
no, subtract five years.

Do you smoke? If yes,

take off 15 years. If no, don’t
add or subtract anything.

Average global life

expectancy at birth—
M E N : 68
W O M E N : 73

7.1 TRILLION
Number of dollars that increasing our health span—the length of time one remains healthy—might add to the U. S.
economy over 50 years, acco rding to a 2013 study led by the Un iversity of Southern California

P OP SC I . C OM 51
Longevity / T HE L ONG V I E W
C AV EAT EMP TO R

A race
THE ETHICS OF
LIFE EXTENSION
A treatment that extends life span
might be tantalizing, but if it’s

to the finish
expensive or inaccessible, it could
also make existing healthcare
inequalities worse, says Alexander
Capron, an expert in health policy
and ethics at the University of South-
ern California Gould School of Law.
Life expectancy in the U.S. is already
tied strongly to socioeconomic
In 2014, Joon Yun, founder of the Palo Alto Institute status: People in wealthier counties,

in California, announced the $1 million Palo Alto such as those surrounding New York
City, tend to live longer, while those
Longevity Prize. Its goal: to “hack the code” of aging. in the rural South face a shorter life
expectancy and poorer health.

The first half will go to the first group young again. The other half of the prize
to restore homeostatic capacity—the will go to the first group that’s able to ex-
body’s ability to stabilize after experi- tend the life of a mammal by 50 percent.
encing stress. “Until midlife, it is so per- So far, 30 teams from across the world
vasively effective that we don’t realize have signed up to compete, including
we have homeostatic capacity until we research groups at schools such as
start losing it,” Yun says. Stanford University and the University
The hitch is, no one knows how to of Nebraska Medical Center, and teams
measure it, and so the prize will use from the private sector, such as Volt
proxies such as heart-rate variability, Health, led by a medical-device design-
and award whichever team can get an er. The clock is ticking—they have until
aging animal’s heart pumping like it’s December 31, 2019 to win.

BIG -MONEY BET

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
Some of the biggest names in biotech have joined the
effort to forestall aging. They’re well-funded, well-staffed,
and largely working in secret.

CALICO
Google founded Calico to develop therapies for age-related
diseases. It’s brought firepower to the effort: Calico’s leaders
include former heads of drug companies and top-notch ex-
perts on genomics and aging. Together with a partner, it has
pledged up to $1.5 billion for research—more than the public
National Institute on Aging earmarked for research in 2016.

CY TEGEN
In late 2015, Breakout Labs, a philanthropic venture founded
by Peter Thiel, announced CyteGen will be folded into its
portfolio of “radical science companies.” CyteGen’s goal: to
use a proprietary drug-discovery platform in order to find
health-span-increasing drugs that target cell metabolism.

HUMAN LONGEVIT Y INC.

Geneticist J. Craig Venter took aim at longevity with the 2013
launch of Human Longevity Inc. In October, the company
announced its first Health Nucleus facility, which offers
personalized analysis of an individual’s genome. That data,
in turn, will help build a whole-genome database that feeds
research on risk factors for age-related diseases.

52 P O P SC I .C OM
 KEY
Colors represent how
many years a person born
in 2013 can expect to live,
by U.S. county.

Average age at death

67-71
71-74
74-77
77-80
80-84

Who needs
a body anyway?
Martine Rothblatt is many As a result of the growing ubiquity of digital devices, I
things—CEO of biotech believe that all of our mannerisms, recollections, feelings,
beliefs, attitudes—everything about our lives—will be col-
company United Therapeu- lected and stored in the cloud. We are creating a simulacrum
tics, founder of Sirius Radio, of ourselves outside our bodies. I call this our “mindfile.”
inventor, lawyer, and medi- At the same time, we’re developing ever-better digital
assistants that use voice recognition and artificial intelli-
cal ethicist—but foremost, gence. They even have different personalities, like Siri. I call
she is a futurist. Specifically, this software “mindware.” And I think the convergence of
Rothblatt believes in trans- mindfiles and mindware will produce a seemingly conscious
humanism, or the indefinite replica of any person—a “mindclone.”
One of the projects my company has been working on is
extension of human life a cognitive enabler for Alzheimer’s disease. An individual
through technology. beginning to suffer would be able to store enough person-
AN D R E C HU N G FO R WAS HI N G TON PO ST /G ET T Y I M AG ES

ality and recollections digitally that, when combined with a

camera and voice recognition, he or she can interact with
friends and family through the technology—even once no
longer able to do so through his or her own brain.
This very naturally leads to the question, how good does
an enabler have to be before it is considered part and parcel
with the person itself? And when the person’s body finally
succumbs, does the enabler claim legal rights?
People have always been afraid of things that are
different and weird. But when the weirdness of cybercon-
sciousness blends with the love for family members, people
will see cyberconsciousness as innocuous. By 2030, I
believe there will be a social movement of people whose
grandmother, sister, or friend has a fatal disease, and who
say their mindclones should be legally recognized as a
continuation of themselves.
Ultimately, the Internet of Things will enable mindclones
to travel, present themselves ever more freely and with
greater ubiquity, and even transcend legal death.
— A S TO L D TO MATT GIL ES

U. S. MA P BY KAT I E P E E K, BAS E D O N DATA F R O M T HE I N STITUT E P OP S C I. C OM 53

FO R HEA LT H M E TR I CS A ND E VA LUAT I O N
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54 P O P SC I .C OM
THE BARON OF LOW-EARTH ORBIT

M A R C H/A P R IL 2 0 1 6

TURN DOWN SKYWALKER WAY, then make a left on Warp Drive. BEAM—the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module—
A hangarlike facility is there, huge, as a hangar should be. Inside, the future of space habitats.
a tall mustachioed gentleman in a baggy gray pinstriped suit According to the jumpsuited workers, none of
stands idly. He owns the facility and everything around it. He whom spoke louder than a reverent whisper, the
also owns the Budget Suites of America a few miles away, down BEAM would soon travel to the Kennedy Space
near the Las Vegas Strip. That’s just part of his empire, that bud- Center in Florida where eventually—within months
get hotel, along with a whole chain of others scattered across or perhaps a year—it would find a berth on a SpaceX
the Southwest. Falcon 9 rocket bound for the International Space
But we’re not here to talk budget hotels. We’re here to talk Station. At the ISS, a robotic arm would reach into the
about the future, and a different kind of accommodations arriving SpaceX Dragon capsule, grab the BEAM, and
entirely: one that can be folded up, bundled onto a rocket, shot attach it to the station’s Tranquility node. Astronauts
into space, expanded, and lived in. We’re here because Robert Bi- would then send a command releasing compressed
gelow—low-key billionaire, space entrepreneur, avowed believer air into the BEAM. As the BEAM becomes pressurized,
in extraterrestrials—has invited us into this warehouse to show it expands until the
off his blow-up space home. There are doughnuts and coffee. module grows to
Soon, lunch will be served. But right now Bigelow is ambling up
“YOU LAUGHED 10.5 feet wide and
to a podium, where he begins to scold us. AT ME,” ROBERT 565 feet cubed. Not
“You laughed at me,” he says to the crowd in his North Las Ve- large but not small
BIGELOW TELLS
© Z U M A PR ES S I N C . / A LA M Y STO C K P H OTO

gas headquarters. “When we said we would build an expandable either. Imagine

system and place it on the International Space Station in two THE CROWD. an eight-person
and a half years, you laughed,” he says. “It’s been two years and a
quarter.” He pauses, letting it sink in—that he’s ahead of sched-
“AND NOW HERE tent or a studio
apartment in Man-
ule—then lets loose a smile, wide as the West. “And here we are.” WE ARE.” hattan. All told, the
Here we are: NASA officials, JAXA officials (that’s Japan’s expansion will take
space agency), media, and Bigelow Aerospace employees. Before four and a half minutes. Then, the real work begins.
Bigelow began his speech, I’d spoken with several of those For two years, the astronauts aboard the ISS will
workers. Dressed in thin white jumpsuits, they stood inside a try to determine if the BEAM, or some larger version
roped-off area surrounding a pedestal, on top of which sat a of it, could be habitable over the long term. They will
refrigerator-size object, swaddled in a gray Kevlar-like material determine leak rate, measure radiation, and exam-
and shaped like an upside-down mixing bowl. This was the ine the thermal control inside the empty module.

56 PO PSCI. CO M
 “We are more focused on the moon.” There is
no follow-up. He just lets it lie. And so does
everyone else—again dismissing what seems
too fantastic to be real, though there are no
chuckles this time.
As the crowd disperses, I sidle up to
Bigelow. Despite the suit, he has the faintly
rugged look of an old cowboy. He’s sitting
slumped in a small plastic folding chair on
the small stage, surrounded by a few handlers,
and looking worn out. He offers his hand indif-
ferently, but when I ask about his moon plans, he
straightens in his chair and leans forward. He drops
his low voice even lower, as if letting me in on a secret.
The BEAM, he says, is much more than a simple proof of con-
cept. “It’s a first step…toward a permanent settlement on the lunar
surface.” He sees many similarities between the ISS test run and
an eventual lunar mission. “Both would do something unique, in
a unique place that has international interests, and would require
a lot of partners—governmental and nongovernmental.” The
BEAM launch, he says, “is not just a stunt—and neither are our
moon plans.”

•••
Billionaire Rober t Bigelow (above and
BACK IN THE MID-1980S, Bigelow noticed a change happening
inset) unveils his expandable modules.
in the desert Southwest. The area, deemed scarcely habitable,
was growing quickly. Businesses were sprouting up, and visitors
They’ll see how the module’s soft walls stand up to needed easy, affordable places to stay. To build his empire, Bige-
the bumps and bruises in space. And they’ll do their low bought land cheap so he could pass along any savings to cus-
best to figure out just what an expandable structure tomers. He also made his hotels as convenient as possible—set
orbiting Earth at about 5 miles per second feels like— right off the highway. He held onto nearly everything he bought,
an impossible thing to know until it is up there. then sold a bunch of property when everyone else was buying
Intuitively, expandables make sense. They pack like crazy, just before the market imploded in 2008. His fortune,
down, weigh less, and in just about every way miti- already vast, grew vaster: His real estate investments alone are
gate the very high costs associated with breaking free estimated at about $700 million today.
of gravity. The BEAM cost just $25 million to develop Bigelow now sees a similar change happening in another
(in part through a $17.8 million NASA contract) and scarcely inhabited and inhospitable place: space. For a decade
could cost about $150 million to launch. Compare that private business has been taking over access to low-Earth orbit
with the (admittedly much more complex) ISS, which (LEO), shuttling cargo and soon astronauts. See SpaceX and
cost an estimated $100 billion, and was assembled Orbital ATK as exhibits one and two. As those launches become
over the course of a decade and a few dozen launches. more frequent—and as the ISS continues to rent out berths
But until the results of this test run come in, no one to space travelers and bench time to private businesses for
can say for sure if crewed expandables are indeed as zero-gravity experiments—the competition for floor space will
good in practice as they seem to be on paper. only increase. Eventually businesses will set up their own labs
© N G I M AG ES / A LA M Y STO C K P H OTO

For argument’s sake, say the BEAM works. Say and stations, and government-backed space agencies will push
everything checks out just as Bigelow thinks it will. beyond LEO into cislunar space, the region between Earth and
What then? He will possibly send a few more pods up the moon. The next logical stop is the moon, then perhaps Mars.
to expand the ISS; he’s already working on a stand- And then who knows? All Bigelow can be certain of is that such
alone craft. But he also has a more ambitious plan. development requires people, and people need places to stay.
Once Bigelow has finished scolding the crowd and That’s where his expandables come in. NASA had pursued
detailing the BEAM’s upcoming mission, he opens a similar idea in the 1990s in a program called TransHab, for
the floor to questions. Someone up front asks how Transit Habitat. The idea was to build an inflatable craft, cheaper
Bigelow Aerospace might fit into a manned Mars than the ISS, to be used en route to Mars. NASA even designed
mission. He’s not sure, he says. Then adds, cryptically, one, complete with a multilayer shell of insulation and

P OP SC I . C OM 57
the (blow-up) meteoroid-debris protection, but Congress cut fund-
ing in 2000, so the program was scrapped. Developing

road to a new space station while still running and building

the current one didn’t sit well, politically. Bigelow

a moon base thought he saw something they didn’t, so he bought

the rights to the TransHab technology for dimes on
the dollar—the craft’s design, the patents for the
layered inflatable walls, everything. He then set out
Sometime within the next year or so, creating what he calls “a turnkey solution to space
habitation.” Cheap and convenient, same as ever.
an expandable pod built by Bigelow For a hotel tycoon, new real estate often yields new
Aerospace will travel to the International opportunities. Low-Earth orbit, and all the private
Space Station—one small step toward the space habitats it could someday support, appears
company’s goal of building a base on the promising, at least in the midterm. Even so, there is
moon. Here’s how it aims to get there. no piece of real estate more compelling to Bigelow
than the moon. Unlike space, the moon has resources.
There are deposits of helium-3 for nuclear fusion,
BEAM (BIGELOW EXPANDABLE
which the Chinese are already reportedly planning
ACTIVITY MODULE)
The first step is to prove an expand- to mine. There is water in the form of ice, which can
able pod makes sense in space, that it be melted and purified for drinking or broken down
works better than typical, rigid space into hydrogen fuel. The moon is also located outside
habitats. BEAM is a 13-foot-long test
pod that SpaceX will haul to the ISS. of Earth’s gravity well. For space agencies looking to
Once there, it will expand and remain make runs to Mars or elsewhere, it is an ideal depar-
attached to the ISS for two years as ture and refueling point.
crews test it. Perhaps most compelling is that Bigelow doesn’t
see any real competition in building a moon base.
NASA isn’t all that interested in a permanent moon
B330
The next step is an expandable, colony, and it has little in the way of future moon
full-scale habitat. The six-person, exploration plans. Jason Crusan, who leads NASA’s
31-foot-long B330 (it has 330 cubic Advanced Exploration Systems Division (basically a
meters of internal volume) is a bigger,
venture-capital fund for space-focused businesses,
better BEAM. But this one features
thrusters, to manuever in orbit, and including Bigelow Aerospace) says he can imagine a
stand-alone-life support systems. future where flights travel between Earth and the
moon on a regular basis. But rather than NASA tak-
ing the lead, he expects others to. “We want to get to
Mars,” he says. The moon is just a means to an end.
OLYMPUS
For Bigelow, the challenges of building a function-
A colossal craft, the Olympus prototype ing base on the moon, while massive, appear far from
offers 2,250 cubic meters of volume insurmountable. A recent study, partly commissioned
when pressurized, making it twice as by NASA (put out on the 46th anniversary of the first
roomy as the ISS. In renderings, it of-
ten holds lunar landers—to ferry crew moon landing), found that the costs associated with
to and from the moon. The problem: returning humans to the moon could be much cheaper
No rocket yet exists to carry Olympus than previously imagined—90 percent cheaper, in fact,
into space.
or closer to $10 billion versus the previous estimate of
about $100 billion. And setting up a moon base might
C O U RT ESY BI G ELOW A ER O S PAC E (4 )

run about $40 billion. Much of the savings comes from

MOON BASE using the moon’s resources in situ. “You take what the
Once expandables like Olympus can moon gives you, and move away from things that have
regularly reach the moon’s orbit, the to be brought up from Earth: water, fuel, protection
problems remaining have largely been
solved. In renderings for a moon base, from radiation,” says George Zamka, a former astro-
the structure looks like several B330s naut and current director at Bigelow Aerospace.
joined together. NASA had envisioned A moon colony is a far cry from the BEAM. But the
its own space habitat in the 1990s and success of BEAM is critical if a colony is to happen.
early 2000s. Bigelow bought the rights
and developed the technology. And that’s why Bigelow invited a bunch of NASA
officials to his warehouse. He would need NASA’s

58 P O P SC I .C OM
 THE BARON OF LOW-EARTH ORBIT

MARCH/APRIL 201 6

permission if he ever planned to send further expand- and a rocket capable of carrying it. At about 43,000 pounds,
ables to the ISS and to access its astronauts. NASA, B330 weighs roughly twice what the Russians or SpaceX can
meanwhile, needs proof that expandables are viable lift. That problem might be temporary, though. Two heavy-lift
habitats, and that Bigelow is the guy to make them. rockets are coming online shortly: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, due
This is all part of the process, as Bigelow sees it. to launch later this year, and NASA’s SLS (for Space Launch
He’s smart enough to know that space habitats need System), which will debut within the decade.
to move slowly for everyone to accept them. But he That’s not to say those rockets ensure B330’s success, or even
doesn’t have to sit on his hands for two years to learn its liftoff. As with all things in space, nothing is certain. And
of BEAM’s results. Far from it. there is plenty of dissent. Bi-
gelow’s critics say he’s putting
••• BIGELOW, the cart (the craft) before the

AS BIGELOW TALKS, I stare at the massive structure

MORE THAN horse (the rockets), that he’s
overstepping with his lunar
hanging beyond the stage. The prototype space ANYONE, IS property plans, and that he’s
station, Olympus—formerly called the BA2100—is
41 feet wide and about 60 feet long. It nearly fills a
COMFORTABLE letting his belief in the future
and value of the moon base
wing of the hangar: three stories, a dozen rooms, with FORGING AHEAD get the better of him.
docking bays on each end, to string multiple crafts IN THE FACE OF But Bigelow, more than
together. On its own, the Olympus offers more than practically anyone, is remark-
two times the interior space of the ISS, about 2,250 DISBELIEF. ably comfortable forging
cubic meters when expanded. ahead in the face of disbelief.
Were it already in space, the Olympus could be He’s seen the impossible happen more than once, after all.
docked with a propulsion unit, providing a crewed As a boy he heard an atomic bomb rumble across the desert
station in LEO, in lunar orbit, or a point in between. It beyond Las Vegas. He saw the flash of light. As a man, he built
could also provide a habitat for a trip to Mars. All of his long-stay empire out on the same barren desert, deemed
which are part of its ultimate purpose. For now, that nearly worthless at the time.
purpose will remain unfulfilled. It is so massive that, Perhaps because of that, because he’s confirmed that the
even deflated, no rocket exists that could haul such a world is surprising and sometimes not what it seems, he’s willing
large payload into orbit. Bigelow keeps the Olympus to chase ideas that no one else does. In the 1990s, he started the
front and center for inspiration, a symbol of all that’s National Institute of Discovery Science for investigations into
left to be done. the paranormal. He bought a ranch in Utah known for UFO
What’s not on display today is Bigelow’s follow-up sightings and “skinwalkers”—werewolflike creatures that were
to BEAM, the B330, a fully livable habitat that is well said to have attacked cattle. The ranch house featured a hallway
underway. According to Zamka, the craft is designed with a closet that locked from inside. His beliefs can seem silly.
to fit a crew of six comfortably, has walls about 18 But explaining them he is frank and open, as if he’s too wise and
inches thick, layers of insulation, and protection successful to feel embarrassed about much of anything anymore.
from micrometeorites. It boasts solar and thermal At the end of our conversation, Bigelow’s handlers close in, tell-
radiator arrays, semiprivate berths, a zero-G toilet, ing him he has more hands to shake. As he steps from the stage,
four windows, two sets of control thrusters, and will a man in a tie-dye T-shirt and flip-flops, holding a video cam-
be able to link up with other spacecraft for docking, era, corners him. “So you believe in aliens,” the man says, then
towing, or tugging. Bigelow engineers are working on launches into a monologue about the mysticism of the desert
avionics systems for orbit, docking, maneuvering, and and extraterrestrial visitations. Bigelow patiently waits him out.
boosting beyond LEO into cislunar space. This past “You simply can’t know unless you’re out there,” Bigelow says,
May, the company announced it was looking to fill then he tells a story he’s repeated many times. His grandparents
upwards of 100 new positions to build those systems were driving through a desert north of Las Vegas when they saw
out for a (very optimistic) launch date in 2018. something otherworldly: a glowing ball of fire in the sky, hurtling
B330 is much more complex than BEAM. It’s not toward them, its light taking up their whole windshield.
a demonstration pod but a full-fledged expandable They told their grandson this story, and ever since he’s
spacecraft, capable of sustaining human life on its believed. Intelligent life is out there, he says. He is certain of
own. Many of its life-support and comfort systems it. Sure, believing in aliens feeds the doubters, leads to more
will be forerunners for a lunar base. criticism, makes him the butt of jokes. But Bigelow doesn’t worry
Zamka told me many of B330’s most daunting about that. For him, belief in the impossible—whether aliens or
problems have been solved, not solely by Bigelow hotels in space—is part of life out here in the desert, or one day
but with help from NASA. What might still hold out there, on the lunar surface. It always has been. To succeed,
up the launch, he said, would be finding a crew, you have to prove everyone wrong. You have to get there first.

P OP SC I . C OM 59
The War of
Social Media
ISIS goes viral—and the world
60 POP S CI. CO M
 MARCH/APRIL 201 6

W hen the militants of the self-

proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS,
ISIL, or Daesh) descended on the Iraqi city of
effect, whether sending gun-
men storming into the Bataclan
theater in Paris last year or
inspiring an American citizen
and his wife to massacre 14
Mosul in June 2014, they didn’t just march into co-workers at a holiday party in
town—they simultaneously launched a Twitter San Bernardino, California.
hashtag campaign, #AllEyesonISIS. It was In the idealistic and early
days of the Internet, many
blitzkrieg with a digital-marketing strategy. Silicon Valley pioneers thought
that in creating a more connect-
Within hours, images of ISIS barbarity spread ed world, they might also create a more peaceful one.
throughout the Arab world, sowing fear among Mosul’s The reality is more complicated. Global connectivity
residents and its defenders. The social-media campaign has brought many new opportunities, undoubtedly, but
gave an air of inevitability to the looming seizure of the it has also bred a new generation of threats. A decade
city, and to the atrocities that would follow. Despite ago, it would have been unthinkable that a militant in
the fact that they outnumbered the attacking ISIS Syria might become pen pals with a lonely teenager in
forces by 15-to-1, the Iraqi army units defending Mosul small-town America. These sorts of interactions now
disintegrated and fled. A militia of roughly 1,500 ISIS keep those at the FBI, NSA, and local law-enforcement
fighters captured a city of some 1.5 million people. agencies awake long into the night.
From its start, social media has been integral to Yet in war, as in nature, every action has an opposite
ISIS’s rise. It allows the group to raise its prestige reaction. Over the past two years, many new forces
among terror organizations, and to overtake older have marshaled to engage ISIS in this war of social
jihadist competitors like al-Qaeda. It serves to coordi- media. The United States has launched a constellation
nate troops and win battles. And it allows the group to of social-media accounts to battle ISIS misinfor-
administer territory it controls. mation. U.S. spies map ISIS networks through what
Now ISIS is using social media to expand its war they reveal of themselves online (one U.S. air strike
far beyond its borders. What started with the choreo- was even guided by an oversharing jihadist). Outside
graphed execution video of journalist James Foley, government, social-media companies have increasingly
blasted across the Web through an army of dummy revised their own systems and terms of service in an
Twitter accounts, has now morphed into something effort to mop up terrorist accounts before they spread,
more devious and distributed. Rather than calling fol- as with Twitter’s recent ban of all “indirect threats of
lowers to the front lines, ISIS’s social-media strategy violence.” Hackers and independent activists also play
cultivates them at home in the U.S., Europe, Africa, and an increasingly important role. Many associated with
Asia. And it can use those followers to devastating the hacking collective Anonymous, for instance, have
taken to patrolling the darker places of the Internet,
waging their own private fight to take down ISIS con-
tent wherever they find it. Some of them even named
BY EMERSON BROOKING a single day, December 11, ISIS Trolling Day, an event
A N D P. W. S I N G E R dedicated just to making fun of the group.
So far, there is only one certainty in this fight. What
ISIS has discovered—this very weird, effective new
way of war—is not a novelty or a one-time thing. ISIS
may have been the first to wield this potent mix of
social media, terror, and war, but it will not be the last.

fights back.
P OP SC I . C O M 61
T HE WAR O F S O C I AL M E DIA

How ISIS
Uses Social Media
as a Weapon
Rather than a centralized master plan with a defined leadership,
the ISIS social-media campaign is a kaleidoscope of distributed
efforts. The group was originally built around seasoned veterans
of the Iraqi insurgency, who were then joined by a new generation
of millennial recruits. A November study by the New America
Foundation found that the average age of Westerners who travel
to join ISIS is 24—they’ve grown up with Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram. Working together, these battle-hardened jihadists and
social-media-savvy recruits have developed a loose framework that
turns social media into a potent weapon of war.

R EA S S U RAN C E

“DOCU M EN TA RIES ” P R ES S R E L E A S ES
Using a captured Western television Like any business or government
journalist, ISIS staged a series of agency, the Islamic State churns
“investigative” reports. Geared out a feed of regular announce-
toward potential Western recruits, ments via social media that gives
the videos are in English and have the appearance of normality: In one, IN T IM IDATIO N
tried to portray the attractiveness of it announced the grand opening of a
life in the Islamic State. children’s hospital.

VIRAL VIDEOS H A S H TAG H I JAC K I N G

INSTAGRA MM IN G
ISIS regularly records the Using careful planning and an army
THE C ALIP HATE
executions of large groups of local of Twitter bots, ISIS militants hijack
Many social-media accounts exist prisoners in order to intimidate and unrelated hashtags to amplify their
to highlight the lighter side of life demoralize the opposing units on message and reach wide audiences.
in ISIS, trying to build its online C H O R EO G R A P H E D the battlefield. The videos are also The group shouldered into online
image. The most bizarre might be V I D EO S engineered to go viral, with unusual celebrations of the 2014 World Cup
“Cats of Jihad,” which gave ISIS killings such as immolation, drown- with an image of a decapitated head.
Early on, ISIS became known
fighters a chance to pose their cats ing, and even explosive collars, all The caption? “This is our football,
for its slickly produced videos of
with guns on Instagram. set to a thundering male chorus. it’s made of skin #WorldCup.”
foreign-hostage executions. Unlike
other jihadist videos, these typically
include a script, multiple high-
definition camera angles, and even a
graphical intro to set the stage.
62 POPSCI. CO M
 MA RCH /APRIL 2016 +
VIRAL
REC RUI T M E N T MARKETING 101
Part of why ISIS has thrived on social media is that it follows
the model of what has worked best for leading online figures
and corporate brands. According to Haroro J. Ingram, an ex-
pert on insurgent information operations at Australian National
University, they are “more strategic-plagiarists than geniuses.”
ONL IN E MAGAZ I N ES

1
Dabiq is ISIS’s monthly online
English-language publication. It has
higher production values than many
TA R G E T I N G
R EC R U I TS Brand consistency
professional magazines. It discuss- Just as Star Wars branding is as consistent on the
ISIS militants cultivate vulnerable
es issues of politics, faith, jihad, and big screen as it is on a Happy Meal, so too is the Is-
recruits with sympathetic messag- lamic State’s. Its flag is monochromatic, so easy to
bomb-making. The mastermind of
es, and engage them via secure draw and reproduce, and has two slogans: “There
the November 2015 Paris terror
messaging services. Recruiters is no god but Allah. Mohammad is the messenger
attacks was previously featured in
will occasionally ship gifts to the of Allah” and “Mohammed is the messenger of
a softball interview, asking how he God.” The monochrome flag has a long history in
targets—and sometimes, even an
could sneak through Europe as a Eastern, Arabic, and Islamic tradition, going back
airline ticket. If the recruit cannot
known jihadist. to one reportedly used by the prophet Mohammad.
travel, they are encouraged to

2
launch terror attacks at home.

Be intimate
With more than 80 million followers, singer Katy
Perry is the queen of Twitter. Her posts are authen-
Q & A S ES S I O N S tic—written like someone in a hurry who has taken
Holding question-and-answer a minute out of her day to talk to her friends. By
sessions for potential applicants on the same token, ISIS propaganda often weaves in
Ask.fm and other online boards, raw testimonials from front-line fighters. Militants
describe sharing meals and laughing together; they
ISIS fighters frankly discuss the
also celebrate comrades who’ve been killed.
ups and downs of their jobs.

C O O RD I N AT I O N 3 Network
In her 2015 music video for Bad Blood, singer
Taylor Swift shared the spotlight with 18 other
stars, including Selena Gomez, Lena Dunham, and
Kendrick Lamar. All benefited from their associa-
tion with Swift, while she expanded her reach to
new fan bases. In the same way, ISIS lets other
terror groups swear bayat (fealty) to it and weaves
them into its social-media campaigns. All of the
C LOC K W I S E FR OM TO P L EFT : IS L A M I C STAT E DA B I Q /A LA M Y STO CK PHOTO;
A M ER G H A Z Z AL /A LA M Y STO C K P HOTO ; S A LE H M A H M O UD LA I LA / A N A DOLU

groups expand their credibility and reach.

4 Engage
AG EN C Y / GE T T Y I M AG ES ; A M ER GH A Z Z A L/A L A M Y STO C K P HOTO

CIV IC FO RU M BOA R D S ST R E A M I N G D R O NES In early 2015, Groupon featured the Banana

Bunker, a storage unit for bananas. More than a
Writing on encrypted discussion ISIS fighters have flown small few lewd jokes followed on its Facebook page, and
boards, ISIS militants analyze and Web-linked drones above the Groupon’s social-media team joked back—to every
plan many aspects of their civic battlefield, gathering real-time post. The Banana Bunker sold out. Likewise, ISIS
administration and operations. reconnaissance footage as well as fighters engage using social media. A macabre low
video for social-media propaganda. came with the tweet, “Suggest A Way to Kill the
Jordanian Pilot Pig,” before ISIS released a video
of their Jordanian captive being burned alive.

S EC U R E M ES SAG ING
In ISIS-controlled territory,
day-to-day conversation has moved
5 If all else fails...troll
Businessman and Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump has mastered a particular
social-media strategy: He starts arguments with
other high-profile figures, which then draws further
attention to himself. Surprisingly, ISIS followers
actually welcome debate about their horrible
to services like Skype, Silent Circle, and seemingly contradictory acts (death by fire is
Telegram, and WhatsApp. Secure banned by Islamic scripture), believing it widens
battlefield communications are their reach and gives them standing.
sometimes carried out over encrypt-
ed messaging platforms like Kik.

P OP SC I . C OM 63
T HE WAR O F S O C I AL M E DIA

What Others
Are Doing to
Fight Back
With threats mounting, an unusual alliance has begun to fight
back against ISIS’s social-media war. Governments have launched
offices that monitor and refute terrorist propaganda in real time.
Companies have set rules of conduct to prevent ISIS from using
their products. Community activists have sought to identify and
reach out to youth at risk of falling under the sway of ISIS re-
cruiters. And members of the Anonymous hacking collective have
hunted and destroyed ISIS websites in the darkest corners of the
Internet. Together, this loose coalition has sought to kick ISIS out
of the very social-media ecosystem that has helped give it life.

S U P P R E S SI O N

CONTEN T T WI T T E R
MODE RATIO N AC C O U N T H U N T I N G
Google, Twitter, and Facebook— Groups of hackers hunt down and
platforms for free and unfettered report ISIS accounts on Twitter;
speech—revised their terms of
service to ban jihadist content. You-
they claim to have eliminated more
than 100,000. They use algorithms HACKIN G
Tube uses human-rights groups as to flag these accounts hundreds of
“flaggers” to identify ISIS content. times in rapid succession.

DOXXING SAB OTAGE

DE TEC TIO N
Posing as potential recruits, hackers Hackers dive into the deep Web,
Because accounts can be quickly
gather intel about ISIS recruiters, beyond the reach of most search
re-created, hackers have written
using cyberforensics to identify engines, to find and eliminate ISIS
programs to search for multiples of
and locate them. This information recruiting centers and bitcoin dona-
similar-sounding Twitter handles. D I ST R I B U T E D is then revealed to the world and tion pages. In one case, the Ghost
ISIS militants, however, have DENIAL OF SERVICE passed along to local authorities. Security Group (not to be confused
responded with programs that
automatically hide these.
(DDOS) AT TACKS One such tip, discovered by Ghost with Ghost Security) replaced an
Security hackers, helped avert a ISIS propaganda hub with an ad-
Hackers use tens of thousands of
July terror attack in Tunisia. vertisement for Viagra and Prozac.
linked computers (botnets) to over-
whelm ISIS websites, sometimes
burning out their physical servers.

64 POP S CI. CO M
 MA RCH /APRIL 2016 +
COUNTERRECRUITMENT PROPAGANDA
THROUGHOUT HISTORY
The technologies have changed, but the goals of warfare pro-
paganda have been the same for centuries: Get in the enemy’s
head, and get vulnerable would-be recruits to fight on your side.

REFUTING TERRORIST

1800s
NARRATIVES
The U.S. government manages a TA R G E T E D Leaflets
A DV E RT I S I N G Inflammatory leaflets helped fuel the
series of Facebook, Twitter, You-
1887 Haymarket Affair, a United States
Tube, and Tumblr accounts, such The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, labor protest that led to an anarchist
as the “Think Again Turn Away” a British think tank, has used Google bombing. In 1902, leaflets by the
series, to highlight and counter ISIS search key words (for example, Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia (who
propaganda and misinformation. people searching “How do I get to would ultimately overthrow the Czarist
Syria?”) to target at-risk users. They government) called for terrorist acts
against the autocracy, among the first
are sent instead anti-extremist Web
modern uses of the word “terrorist.”
videos that (initially) look like just

1940s
another piece of ISIS propaganda.
Radio
Underground radio came to prominence
during World War II as a way to orga-
nize partisan resistance movements,
most notably in Nazi-occupied Europe.

1970s
C O U N T E R - I S I S H AC K AT H ONS
Australia is one of several countries that has
Cassette Tapes
launched national hackathons, convening Web The sermons of Iran’s exiled Ruhollah
developers and Muslim community leaders to Khomeini spread via audiotape among
student protesters in Iran, helping to
create online tools that will help locals resist
hurl the nation toward revolution and
the group’s siren call. Ideas have included coop- allow Ayatollah Khomeini to assume
erative games, specialized social networks for the role of Supreme Leader of the new
Muslim youth, and even a “Tinder for mentoring.” Islamic Republic. As one Iranian official
remarked at the time, “Tape cassettes
are stronger than fighter planes.”

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
1980s VHS
When Soviet soldiers were bogged down
in Afghanistan, blurry videos of the
mujahedeen rebels fighting them spread
C LOC K W I S E FR OM TO P: C OU RT ESY T UM BLR ; S A EE D K HA N / A FP /G E T T Y I MAGES ;

across the Muslim world. Similar videos

emerged from mujahedeen who went on
to fight in Bosnia and Chechnya in the
1990s. Emerging terrorist leaders like
Osama Bin Laden took to recording their
messages on VHS and smuggling them
to their followers, who could quickly
FORU M IN F ILTRAT I O N OPEN-SOURCE copy and disseminate them.
A M ER G H A Z Z AL /A LA M Y STO C K P HOTO ; A J + V IA YO UT UB E

I N T E L L I G E N C E GAT HERING

1990s
Government intelligence agencies
and hackers both use a variety of Researchers comb ISIS social-media Websites
tactics to infiltrate jihadist forums. accounts to identify who is in the network, The first jihadist website, the Islamic
They become “flies on the wall,” and to conduct data analysis on trends and Media Center, appeared online in 1991.
collecting information on who is re- patterns. They are looking for what interests Many more followed. These simple
cruiting and who is being recruited. the online community of radicals in order to websites provided quick and universal
predict what they’ll do next. access to jihadist literature everywhere.

2000s Downloadable
Videos
Al-Qaeda released its first online video
FI R ST H A N D in mid-2001. It claimed credit for de-
R E P O RT I N G stroying the USS Cole, an event that had
killed 17 American sailors the previous
Brave citizens in ISIS-administered year. The world of terrorism and tech-
territory launch blogs and Facebook nology was set in motion for 9/11 and
pages to document ISIS war crimes, the Internet Age.
refuting the group’s propaganda of life
in the caliphate. It is risky; those caught
by ISIS face immediate execution.

P OP SC I . C OM 65
The 2016

The most exciting areas of science often can’t be seen with the naked eye because the
phenomena are too big or too small, too slow or too fast. That’s why we believe it’s worth
honoring those who use novel techniques—or create exceptional examples of traditional
ones—to present scientific ideas visually. So, for the second year, Popular Science has
teamed up with the National Science Foundation to bring you exemplars of information
made beautiful. Congratulations to the winners!

66 PO P S CI. CO M
 MARCH/ APRIL 201 6

WE PRESENT THE WINNERS OF OUR

ANNUAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
VISUALIZATION COMPETITION

HOW WE SELECTED THE EXPERT JUDGES Miriam Leuchter, A P R OJEC T OF THE

THE BEST David Bolinsky, medical animator editor-in-chief of Popular NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
A ND P OP U L A R S C IE NCE
A team of experts at the and co-founder of e.mersion Photography
National Science Foundation and studios Eleanor Lutz,
Popular Science pared hundreds designer and science illustrator
Martha Harbison, network
of submissions to 50 finalists—10 behind TabletopWhale.com
content editor for the Audubon
in each of the five categories. From
Society Heather B. McDonald,
those 50, a panel of outside experts
picked five winners. Another Eric Klopfer, professor of science independent biologist
panel of experts—that is to say, education and engineering and artist
our readers—chose five People’s systems at MIT Jan Willem Tulp, head of the
Choice winners. Robert Kosara, research scientist data visualization studio TULP
at Tableau Software Interactive

R E P O RT I NG BY Alexandra Ossola AND Neel V. Patel P OP SC I . C OM 67

T HE V I Z Z I ES

M AR C H/ A P R IL 2 0 1 6

PHOTOGRAPHY ship between liquid droplets and a As a master’s student in marine leg hairs for sensory tasks such
vibrating bath. The vibration stops biology at the University of Maine, as finding food. Adults have them
1. EXPERT’S CHOICE the droplet from assimilating into Jesica Waller spent the summer too, meaning baby and grown-up
WALKING IN COLOR the bath, and it bounces across the taking pictures of baby lobsters. lobsters alike taste with their feet.
By Daniel M. Harris and John surface instead. The droplet and the Increasingly warm and acidic
W.M. Bush waves it creates mimic some of the oceans affect many marine species, VIDEO*
Quantum physics measures statistical behaviors of quantum and so Waller raised thousands of
movements of the tiniest particles particles—except they’re visible lobsters in the lab—no easy task, 3. EXPERT’S CHOICE AND
in the universe, which not only to the naked eye. The photo is one since young lobsters tend to eat PEOPLE’S CHOICE
happen incredibly quickly and on of several hundred Harris took for one another—to see how different CORAL BLEACHING: A
very small scales, but also defy his doctorate, all snapped with an climate-change scenarios alter BREAKDOWN OF SYMBIOSIS
physicists’ intuition. Analogies from off-the-shelf camera. their development. This image of a By Fabian de Kok-Mercado,
the macroscopic world can help live three-week-old specimen was Satoshi Amagai, Mark Nielsen,
scientists visualize quantumlike 2. PEOPLE’S CHOICE one of thousands Waller took. It Dennis Liu, and Steve Palumbi
phenomena more easily. Daniel AMERICAN LOBSTER LARVA captures the distinct, delicate hairs Corals are a quirky species—
Harris, then a doctoral student at By Jesica Waller, Halley McVeigh, on the legs. Since lobsters have they’re invertebrate animals built
MIT, turned to a quirky relation- and Noah Oppenheim very poor vision, they rely on their out of genetically identical polyps,

68 PO PSCI. CO M
 4

which collect together into massive 4. HONORABLE MENTION stingers, and the biochemistry freelance science illustrator
underwater reef structures. For ENTOMOLOGY ANIMATED of the venom. Keller created the Stephanie Rozzo helped clean the
food, they rely on a symbiotic EPISODE 1: RIFA MADNESS video as a labor of love, even down seahorse exhibit. Over time, she
relationship with algae, which By Eric Keller to the background music, which found herself enchanted by their
make sugar and nutrients through Though less than a quarter-inch he composed himself. The famed colors and movements. Rozzo knew
photosynthesis. This video, created long, fire ants terrify even the entomologist E.O. Wilson was so she had her next illustration subject
by a team at the Howard Hughes largest humans. A brief encounter impressed, he entreated Keller to when one male began carrying
Medical Institute, envisions a reef with a colony can leave a person’s make more biology animations. eggs (as males of the species do).
seen from miles above the planet. body riddled with hundreds of Keller says he’s working on it. She rendered an expectant pair of
Then, it zooms in to the microscop- angry, red stings. But freelance seadragons—native Australian fish
ic structures where the algae live. digital artist Eric Keller finds ILLUSTRATION closely related to seahorses—in
The animation details how rising them fascinating. He proclaims acrylic paint with their seaweed
ocean temperatures can prompt his enthusiasm in the first episode 5. EXPERT’S CHOICE habitat in graphite. The work
coral to eject the algae—a process of his video series, Entomology WEEDY SEADRAGON LIFE CYCLE depicts the species’ life stages from
known as coral bleaching. Without Animated. Viewers see the natural By Stephanie Rozzo embryonic fry through adulthood.
their symbiotic partners, bleached history of Solenopis invicta, the During her time volunteering at
coral slowly die. physiology behind their spiteful the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Category continued on next page

*VISIT popsci.com/vizzies to watch the winning videos.

P OP SC I . C OM 69
T HE V I Z Z I ES

M A R C H/A P R IL 2 0 1 6

6. PEOPLE’S CHOICE says she hopes the layperson can E. Lepsch, and Patrick Lynch 8. PEOPLE’S CHOICE
THE FTSZ RING: A appreciate the complexity of the While a professor at Oregon State, A VISUAL INTRODUCTION TO
MULTILAYERED PROTEIN microscopic world in the image. cartographer Bernhard Jenny MACHINE LEARNING
NETWORK Harold Erickson, a cell biologist at made this visualization, which By Stephanie Yee and Tony Chu
By Jennifer E. Fairman Duke University who has studied shows how carbon dioxide travels As an employee of a company that
When her colleague Jie Xiao FtsZ but wasn’t involved in the around the globe. The work builds provides digital security through
approached her to make an research, called the model “quite on research by NASA meteorol- machine learning, Stephanie Yee
illustration for a journal article, an achievement.” ogist Bill Putman, whose team spent a lot of time familiarizing
Jennifer Fairman didn’t know just modeled atmospheric CO2 flows clients with the secret sauce
how challenging the assignment INTERACTIVE* and created a video of the result. behind her product. So she and her
would be. Xiao was studying Jenny integrated the video with colleague, designer Tony Chu, set
E. coli bacteria. Her team had 7. EXPERT’S CHOICE an interface that allows users to out to create an interactive graphic
revealed the arrangement of A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF reposition the globe and explore that would do the explaining for
proteins, including one called FtsZ, EARTH’S CO2 the data themselves. “We wanted them. The pair chose a topic they
at the site where E. coli bacterium By Bernhard Jenny, Bojan Šavrič, to make this video as engaging as thought would be intuitive to most
divides. Though she was working Johannes Liem, William M. possible to illustrate how humans people—real estate prices—and
for a scientific audience, Fairman Putman, Kayvon Sharghi, Aaron change our planet,” Jenny says. created an interactive environment

*VISIT popsci.com/vizzies to interact with these winners.

70 POPSCI. CO M
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10

that builds in complexity as the The common bladderwort is a captures the dramatic moment delicate purple octopuses. To show
user scrolls. In the first 30 days, diminutive aquatic plant with just before the green monster off the vibrancy of the sub-marine
the site got 250,000 page views fetching yellow flowers that lives ensnares a passing water flea, pre- environment, Moret compared 50
worldwide. Feedback showed Chu on ponds and lakes in Asia and senting the organism’s anatomy land and seascapes from above
and Yee that experts in many fields Europe. But under the surface, it in exquisite—and appropriately the surface with 50 shallow-water
could use their interactives. The hides a carnivorous secret: 1-inch creepy—detail. shots from below. She sampled
duo is collaborating with academics chambers—or bladders—along its the pixels from each image, and
to tailor their next set of explanato- branches that suck in unsus- 10. PEOPLE’S CHOICE ordered them by hue and value.
ry machine-learning visualizations pecting prey. Wai-Man Chan, a ANTARCTICA: A CHROMATIC The resulting visualization hints
to different disciplines. graduate student in biomedical PARADOX at the color and diversity in the
visualization at the University of By Skye Moret Southern Ocean. Moret wants to
POSTERS & GRAPHICS Illinois at Chicago, saw a plastic Even after nine trips to Antarctica awe viewers but also remind them
model of a bladderwort at the as a marine-science technician, of climate change’s reach. “Life
9. EXPERT’S CHOICE Field Museum in Chicago, and says Skye Moret is still awed by the sea underneath the surface is warming
THE TRAPPING MECHANISM OF she was intrigued that the tiny, life that surrounds the icy conti- also—it’s threatened and vulnerable,
THE COMMON BLADDERWORT bulbous bladder could contain nent. The waters brim with yellow and it’s typically neglected in the
By Wai-Man Chan such a powerful trap. Her poster sea stars, pink sea cucumbers, and dialogue,” she says.

P OP SC I . C OM 71
 Fukushima

J A PA N I S S T I L L C L E A N I N G U P
ONE OF THE WORST NUCLEAR
DISASTERS THE WORLD HAS
EVER SEEN.
S T E V E F E AT H E R S T O N E W E N T
THERE TO SEE HOW MUCH THEY
H AV E A C C O M P L I S H E D — A N D
H O W FA R T H E Y H AV E T O G O .

PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART

72 POPSCI. CO M
 MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6

I.
ON MARCH 11, 2011,
THE MOST POWERFUL
EARTHQUAKE EVER
RECORDED IN JAPAN
STRUCK THE NORTHEAST
COAST OF THE MAIN
ISLAND. THE GROUND
SHOOK FOR SIX MINUTES,
CUTTING ELECTRICAL
POWER TO THE
FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT.
A 50-foot wall of water spawned by the quake exploded
over Daiichi’s seawall, swamping backup diesel genera-
tors. Four of six nuclear reactors on-site experienced a
total blackout. In the days that followed, three of them
melted down, spewing enormous amounts of radiation
into the air and sea in what became the worst nuclear
disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
The Japanese government never considered abandon-
ing Fukushima as the Soviet Union did with Chernobyl. It
made the unprecedented decision to clean up the contami-
nated areas—in the process, generating a projected 22
million cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste—and
return some 80,000 nuclear refugees to their homes. This
past September, the first of 11 towns in Fukushima’s man-
datory evacuation zone reopened after extensive decon-
tamination, but fewer than 2 percent of evacuees returned
that month. More will follow, but surveys indicate that the
majority don’t want to go back. Some evacuees are afraid
of radiation; many have simply moved on with their lives.
Another town scheduled to reopen, sometime in the
next two years, is Tomioka, 6 miles south of the nuclear
plant. One night this past fall I drove around Tomioka’s

P OP SC I . C OM 73
F UK US H I M A

waterfront, which the tsunami 0.23 μSv/h, and about 15 times

had completely wiped out. It the normal background level in
was eerily quiet, save for a loud, Tokyo. Hiyashi had returned to
metallic clap echoing through the Tomioka, a mildly radioactive
empty streets from the direction ghost town, for reasons millions
of an incineration facility. Wild of suburbanites could appreciate.
boar scampered through fields “The commute was killing
where the old train station once me,” he lamented.
stood. And a breeze carried Hiyashi took me to see his
the scent of mold and rot from house, which had been decon-
shops and homes that had been taminated just that week. In the
cracked open by the earthquake driveway, an empty decontamina-
and gutted by the tsunami. In one tion bag sagged in a steel frame.
shop, a truck had been carried Bright pink tape marked areas Nu cl ear scientist Ikuro Anzai measures radiation
through a display window and of high radiation: downspouts, levels near a nu rsery school in Fu kushima City.
deposited on the floor as if it had faucets, electrical conduit. We
been deliberately parked there. walked around the yard, avoiding
During the day, Tomioka, piles of clean fill that hadn’t been
which once had 16,000 resi- raked out yet. The sun was going
dents, is a vast construction down over a dark stand of pine the 7,000 employees who now work at Fukushima Daiichi
site sprawling for miles across trees across the road. Crickets strip out of their protective clothing in front of long rows
residential neighborhoods, com- began to stir in the high grass of lockers. One of our guides said that things were begin-
mercial districts, and fallow rice growing beyond the decontami- ning to return to normal, pointing out that workers no
fields. Thousands of decontam- nation buffer zone. Hiyashi put longer needed to wear full-face respirators at 90 percent
ination workers equipped with his hands on his hips and looked of the site, and also that vending machines were recently
little more than shovels strip 2 around at the neighborhood of installed outside the cafeteria. Given the popularity of
inches of contaminated topsoil in darkened houses. vending machines in Japan, this wasn’t a stretch.
a 65-foot perimeter around every “Tomioka exists only in name,” After a briefing, we were taken to an adjoining building
structure in town. They dump he said. “It’ll never be a town where TEPCO had a special viewing room outfitted with
the soil into black decontamina- again.” I got the sense that thick, radiation-proof portholes. Carved from a 115-foot
tion bags, which they pile onto Hiyashi, like so many evacuees, coastal bluff in the late 1960s, the Fukushima Daiichi
every street corner and empty would rather be compensated to complex has two main terraces separated by a steep slope.
lot. Some bags have been there relocate. Owning a house in a From my vantage point seven stories above the upper ter-
so long, they’ve sprouted weeds. place few want to live isn’t much race, I could see the entire 860-acre site, a bustling city of
The workers also use dry hand of an inheritance for his daughter. workers garbed in white Tyvek suits. Construction vehicles
towels to wipe down every single rumbled down roads between blocks of drab industrial
building, from the roof to the buildings. Before the disaster, much of the plant’s grounds
foundation, and pressure-wash were covered in pine trees that served as a bird sanctuary.
any asphalt and concrete. It’s
tedious, exhausting work.
The town allows residents
II.
WHILE THE Japanese gov-
“Every time I come here, I’m so surprised,” said one
TEPCO guide as he stared in awe at row upon row of
water tanks below. “Two years ago, it was all flat land.”
to visit during the day, but ernment rebuilds Fukushima Half a mile to the east, where the site meets the Pacific
special permission is required prefecture, the Tokyo Electric Ocean, four of the reactors rise up from the lower terrace:
for overnight stays. When I Power Company (TEPCO) is Unit 4 with its trellislike support structure; the stub of
met him, Kenichi Hiyashi, a slowly dismantling the Fukushi- Unit 3; the deceivingly intact Unit 2, which is the only
broad-shouldered supervisor for ma Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged reactor to still sport its outer shell; and Unit 1,
a company cleaning up Tomioka, a process that’s expected to cost clad in beige panels. The different appearance of each
was about to move back to his at least $15 billion. Two weeks reactor reflected the complexity of decommissioning the site.
house on the outskirts of town. after I visited Hiyashi, I drove “At Fukushima Daiichi, there’s no textbook,” said
Four and half years earlier, when through Tomioka again, this time chief decommissioning officer, Naohiro Masuda, when I
he evacuated with his daughter on a bus with a handful of other spoke to him at TEPCO’s headquarters in Tokyo a week
and parents, radiation levels were journalists headed to the site. earlier. “There are three reactors [that melted down], and
5 microsieverts per hour (μSv/h). Inside the plant gates, guides each has a different manner in which the fuel melted. The
Now they hovered at around 0.6 wearing white TEPCO golf shirts buildings are damaged in different ways. So we need to
μSv/h—still more than twice the herded us inside the Entrance think of three different methods to solve this problem.”
government’s long-term goal of Control Building, where some of In other words, Fukushima Daiichi has three separate
decommissioning projects, not just one.
A reactor like those at Fukushima Daiichi is essentially
a sophisticated machine for boiling water. Fission heat
74 POPSCI. CO M
 MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6

from soaking into the contaminat-

ed ground. As the bus descended
toward the ocean, we passed
an area piled high with the sun-
bleached trunks of dead pine
trees. Only a few cherry trees had
been spared the chainsaw.
Our first stop was an unre-
markable windowless building
situated on a hillside. Standing
on top of it, I was eye-level with
the roofs of the four damaged
reactors. They were 19 stories
Bags f illed with co ntaminated soil and tall, except for Unit 3, shortened
d eb r i s sta ck u p o n a si te i n Na ra h a . by a hydrogen explosion that
Left: Wo rkers build a new seawall blew its top off. Crane booms
a l o n g Fu kush i ma’s coa st. used to erect new reactor cover-
ings dangled high above them.
The coverings prevent the spread
boot covers, and masking tape to of radioactive dust. Ultimately,
seal the shirt cuffs. All of these they will provide a frame from
precautions were supposed to which to suspend equipment,
keep radioactive contaminants when TEPCO finally gets around
from getting inside our lungs to extracting the melted fuel.
and on our skin. It provided no Even under ordinary condi-
protection whatsoever against tions, retrieving fuel rods from a
from nuclear fuel rods makes steam that spins a turbine, gamma radiation. A TEPCO nuclear reactor’s core is a delicate
producing electricity. The steam is condensed, cooled, andhandout informed us that our procedure requiring the use of
pumped back into the reactor core to keep the fuel from dosimeters were set to beep specialized machinery. The fuel
overheating, and to make more steam. If water circulation in 20 μSv intervals. Properly rods are sealed inside a reactor
stops, the rods can get so hot that they begin to lose integ-
clothed, we clambered aboard a pressure vessel (RPV), a 750-ton
rity. In a worst-case scenario, they melt like wax candles,
bus upholstered in thick plastic steel capsule filled with water
and the molten fuel pools up inside the reactor, releasingand duct tape. lodged in the heart of the reactor.
massive amounts of radiation. Surrounding the RPV is
Masuda estimates that decommis- the primary containment
sioning the Fukushima Daiichi site— vessel (PCV), a massive,
removing all nuclear and radiological pear-shaped structure
hazards—will take three to four FATA L R A D I AT I O N L E V E L S M A K E I T made of concrete up to
decades, although he acknowledged 5 feet thick and lined
IMPOSSIBLE TO SEND INSPECTION
that the technologies required to with 5 inches of steel.
scoop melted fuel out of the dam- CREWS INSIDE THE REACTORS. The PCV, in turn, is
aged reactors don’t even exist yet. INSTEAD, TEPCO SENT TWO ROBOTS. embedded in a concrete
“Engineers are studying the honeycomb of utility
problem,” he says, “but we don’t rooms filled with a lab-
think that there’s no way to remove yrinth of pipes, pumps,
the fuel. There’s huge risk involved. and other equipment.
If you make one small mistake, it might cause a huge The only part of the reactor visi-
problem for the local people, or even worldwide. We have ble to the eye is a thin outer layer
to be aware of that possibility.”
To get a closer look at the reactors, we donned anti-
contamination gear: safety helmet, dust mask, goggles,
III.ONCE LANDSCAPED with
of sheet metal and concrete.
Shucking our contaminated
shoe covers, we boarded the bus
two pairs of latex gloves, one pair of cotton gloves, long- greenery, the long, steep slope and motored down a road at the
sleeved undershirt with breast pockets to hold a dosimeter separating the upper and lower base of the reactors. Units 1, 3,
(a device the size of a flip phone that measures the terraces of Fukushima Daiichi is and 4 had suffered hydrogen
amount of radiation a person absorbs), disposable pants, now a moonscape of smooth con- explosions that looked dramatic
two pairs of socks, Tyvek suit, rubber boots, disposable crete, designed to keep rainwater in news footage. In reality the
explosions blew apart only
the reactors’ thin outer layers,

P OP SC I . C OM 75
leaving the massive PCVs mostly F U K U SHIMA
intact. At least that’s the hope.
Nobody can say for certain if the
earthquake, hydrogen explo-
sions, or some unknown event—a
mysterious explosion was heard
coming from deep inside Unit
2, for instance—had cracked the
PCVs. Fatal radiation levels make
it impossible to send inspection
crews inside the reactors.
Instead, TEPCO sent two
robots into the PCV of Unit 1
this past April to locate the
melted fuel. One robot stopped
working within three hours; the
other persevered for four days.
The best information TEPCO has
received so far about the location
of fuel debris came from a recent
muon scan of Unit 1. The scan
revealed a void inside the reactor
pressure vessel, confirming the
worst-case scenario: Molten fuel
had burned clean through it and
slumped to the bottom of the
primary containment vessel. Fuel
had probably melted through the
RPVs in Units 2 and 3 as well.
The likelihood of TEPCO meet-
ing its 2021 deadline for the start The destroyed Fu kushima Daiichi nu cl ear power plant as seen from the bridge
of fuel-debris removal is, at best, beside the Ta kigawa dam in Tomioka, about 7 miles southwest of the plant.
remote. In the meantime, there’s
plenty of other decommissioning
work to keep the company busy.
a steel-plated road that ran that level merely reflects a regulatory threshold. “Non-
between the ocean and the four detectable doesn’t mean the plant isn’t leaking into the
turbine buildings. Together, sea,” says Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist with Woods

IV.
MY DOSIMETER beeped
the buildings formed a feature-
less white wall longer than a
Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
Hole Oceanographic Institution. “In fact, TEPCO’s data,
like our own, shows continued elevated levels of cesium in
ocean waters closest to the plant.”
its first 20 μSv alert as the Tsunami-tossed wreckage was The bus braked in front of Unit 4. We got out to look
bus passed the Common Pool strewn against their foot: twisted at what TEPCO called the “seaside impermeable wall”:
Building, where thousands of ductwork, chunks of broken 594 concrete-and-steel piles that run almost half a mile
spent nuclear fuel assemblies sit concrete pronged with rusty re- along the waterfront. It is the last line of defense between
submerged underwater. Nuclear bar, and large pieces of smashed Fukushima Daiichi and the sea, though it is designed to
reactors have to be refueled equipment. We were perhaps 12 protect the sea from the nuclear plant, not vice versa.
about every three years. At feet above sea level, the lowest To understand the full scale of the water problem at
Fukushima Daiichi, hot spent point at the site, and an ideal van- Fukushima Daiichi, you have to go back to the disaster’s
fuel initially cools off in a pool tage point from which to appre- early days. Under normal conditions, water circulates
on the top floor of the reactors ciate the immensity of both the through the reactor facilities in a closed loop to cool the
before being transferred to the reactor facilities and the tsunami nuclear fuel and generate steam. That loop broke during
Common Pool Building. Unit that inundated them. Looking the disaster, and TEPCO resorted to pouring seawater
4 was offline at the time of the out to sea, it was terrifying to into the overheating reactors. The reactors and turbine
disaster, and therefore didn’t imagine a 50-foot tide of water buildings quickly began filling up with thousands of tons
melt down. In December 2014, rolling over the breakwaters and of highly contaminated seawater.
TEPCO reached a major mile- plowing into the bus. “A few more days and water would have overflowed
stone when cranes hoisted the Five years after the meltdowns, the plant, which would’ve taken whatever they had and
last fuel assembly from Unit 4’s contaminated water continues to squared it in terms of a catastrophe,” recalls John Ray-
spent fuel pool. It plans to pluck flow from the site into the ocean. mont, founder of Kurion, a nuclear waste management
the remaining spent fuel from the Although TEPCO’s most recent company based in Irvine, California. “We heard that some
other reactors beginning in 2019. analysis of seawater shows a of the men at the site would step in a puddle and get radia-
The bus turned sharply onto “nondetectable” level of cesium, tion burns immediately from it.”
There are no longer skin-searing puddles of radioactive
water on the ground at Fukushima Daiichi. But TEPCO
is still circulating 320 metric tons of water per day into
76 PO PSCI. CO M
the reactors to keep the melted fuel cool. An ad-hoc MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6
circulation loop now pumps contaminated water from the
reactors to a purification system custom-built by Kurion
that removes two of the worst radionuclides: cesium and spent his career criticizing the
strontium. Most of the water then goes back into the incestuous relationship between
reactors, while some gets piped to the tank farm. government regulators and the
There are 1,000 tanks at Fukushima Daiichi, con- nuclear industry that allowed
taining more than 700,000 metric tons of contaminated companies like TEPCO to ignore microsieverts per hour,” he
water, equivalent to nearly 300 Olympic-size swimming safety warnings. In his view, announced. “It’s the same as my
pools. TEPCO can’t go on building tanks forever, nor can Japan should follow Germany’s office in Kyoto.”
it discharge the water into the ocean. The water is con- example. Until that happens, the That was less than half the radi-
taminated with high levels of tritium, a radioisotope that least the government could do is ation levels Anzai found when he
can’t be removed using conventional filtration technology. educate a skittish public about surveyed the same walking route
Even if TEPCO could eliminate the tritium overnight, it’s the health effects of radiation two years ago, good news for the
doubtful the government would allow the company to exposure. Anzai can’t do much children who attended Torikawa
dump potentially 1 million tons of “purified” Fukushima about the former, but few are Nursery School. Ever since the
water into the ocean before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; it better equipped, or motivated, disaster they’ve been cooped up
would be a public relations nightmare. In the meantime, to address the latter. He travels out of fear of being exposed to
water tanks are sprouting up all over the site like colonies to Fukushima prefecture every radiation. Now they could take
of toadstools after a rainstorm. month to measure radiation their daily walk again.
We boarded the bus and headed toward reactor Units levels to reassure those who no “It’s important for children to
5 and 6. On the way, we stopped briefly at various well longer trust the government—to be able to touch the snow and
heads and filtration facilities designed to trap and treat say nothing about the nuclear step on the ice,” the director
hundreds of tons of groundwater that flows downhill industry—to protect their safety. of the nursery school, Miyoko
toward the ocean every day—right beneath the crippled “The accident destroyed Sato, told me. “But we still worry
reactors. Some of the groundwater mixes with the highly people’s trust in the industry, in about the food the children eat.”
contaminated water in the reactors and must be treated the government, and experts,” Food grown in Fukushima pre-
and pumped to the tank farm; some ends up leaking Anzai said. “As a scientist, I want fecture—famous for its produce
into the ocean, untreated. TEPCO has been testing an to make a sincere effort to stand in Japan—is closely monitored
underground “ice wall” to divert the flow of groundwater beside victims and help minimize for radioactive contamination,
around the reactor facilities, but there’s no word on when their exposure to radiation, and but the school still sources its
the company will switch it on. to restore trust in scientists.” food from outside it. Understand-
Located on high ground, Units 5 and 6 were un- On a drizzly afternoon, I met ably, many parents no longer
touched by the tsunami. But they lie directly in the path of Anzai at the Torikawa Nursery trust authorities on any matter
the radioactive plume that ended up concerning radiation,
contaminating 3,500 square miles which is ironic, because
of land northwest of the plant. We the food restrictions that
passed dead pine trees scattered like IN TWO HOURS ON-SITE, MOST OF the government put in
orange toothpicks along the edge of place after the disaster
a wooded area. Pine trees are partic- IT RIDING ON A BUS, I’D RECEIVED A were, in Anzai’s view,
ularly radiosensitive, and these had R A D I AT I O N D O S E E Q U I VA L E N T O F one of the few things it
probably suffered the same fate as did right.
AT L E A S T F O U R C H E S T X - R AY S .
trees in Chernobyl’s infamous Red As the cleanup of
Forest, a tract of pines killed by fall- Fukushima prefecture
out. For the second and last time, my and the decommission-
dosimeter beeped a 20 μSv alert. In ing of the nuclear plant
two hours on-site, most of it riding on a bus, I’d received a School in Fukushima City, move forward, Anzai has one
radiation dose equivalent of at least four chest X-rays. about 40 miles from Fukushima simple piece of advice for Japan’s
Daiichi. Although residents were government and its nuclear indus-
never evacuated, radioactive hot try, one that he’s been repeating
spots in some parts of town still for more than four decades:

V.
THE FUKUSHIMA disaster had a chilling effect on
exceed the government’s long-
term decontamination goal of
0.23 μSv/h. A gamma spectrom-
“Don’t hide, don’t lie, and don’t
underestimate.”
In many ways, rebuilding
the nuclear-power industry worldwide. Germany, for eter hung on a strap over Anzai’s Fukushima is the easy part.
example, is phasing out of nuclear energy altogether. shoulder as I followed him down Japan has recovered from far
China suspended its rapidly expanding nuclear-energy winding lanes to an old Buddhist worse. Restoring public faith will
program. And in Japan, where nuclear power supplied temple in the center of a residen- be much more difficult because
30 percent of the country’s energy, the entire reactor fleet tial neighborhood. Anzai knelt trust has no half-life.
was taken offline. But the nuclear chill has begun to warm next to a swing set and held the
up lately. Ten new reactors went online last year, the most spectrometer’s sensor over a hole Reporting for this story was
since 1990. China now has 24 reactors under construc- he’d made in the coarse sand. supported by a grant from the
tion, with more on the books. Last August, Japan quietly “Zero point zero seven International Center for Journalists.
restarted its first reactor since the disaster.
Ikuro Anzai, an owlish 75-year-old nuclear scien-
tist from Kyoto, is skeptical of this development. He’s
P OP SC I . C OM 77
 EDITED BY SO PHIE BUSHW ICK

This year is the 85th anniversary of quite possibly

Unleash Your Inner the greatest monster movie ever made: the original
Frankenstein with Boris Karloff. The classic film

Mad Scientist with gave us now-common horror tropes such as mad

scientists in ill-fitting lab coats, angry mobs with
torches, and of course, the transformational power

a Jacob’s Ladder of high-voltage electricity.

Of the movie’s many amazing machines (real and
imagined), the Jacob’s Ladder is perhaps the most
iconic. It consists of two vertical wires, connected by a
buzzing electrical arc that slowly travels upward. The
science behind a Jacob’s Ladder is simple: When
TIME 4 hours
COST $125
voltage is applied between conductors—in this case,
DIFFICULTY • •••• the two wires—electrons on the positive side want to
leap to the negative side. To do that, they have to over-
come the insulating barrier of air between the wires.
by If you crank the voltage high enough, the electrons
WI LLI AM break free and turn the air into plasma. Since plasma
GUR STE L L E is a great conductor of electricity, an arc appears
between the wires. The heated air around the plasma
is less dense than the air above, so it moves upward.
WA R N I NG : The electrons follow, causing the arc to travel. The
Use in a well- effect makes for a spectacular movie prop—and an
ventilated area.
even more impressive garage attraction.
Never touch or go
with i n a foot of
the electrodes
wh e n the t rans -
former is plugged
in—it could cause
i n j ur y or deat h.

78 POPSCI. CO M P HOTOGR AP H BY Brian Klutch

 MARCH/APRIL 2 01 6

TO O L S I N ST R U C T I O N S

1 Make sure the transformer is

unplugged before starting.

2 Attach the terminal strip to

the center of the plywood with
Screwdriver Soldering iron the No. 10 screws.

3 Attach the 10-gauge copper

M AT E R I A L S wires to the terminal strip,
leaving one terminal between
• 9,000 - to 15,000 - • Two 1-megaohm them. The wires will act as
volt neon-sign resistors the electrodes.
tra n sfo r mer • 16 - gauge
• Three -position insulated wire 4 Remove the screw from the
ter mi n a l str i p • 1-inch-long No. terminal between the elec-
• No. 10 ter mi n a l 10 bolt with screw trodes and replace it with the
screws h ea d c u t o ff No. 10 headless bolt.
• Plywood board , • 22-quar t cl ea r
24-inch-by-12- polyca rbonate 5 Position the wires vertically
inch-by-½-inch co ntainer so they’re about 1 centimeter
• Two 14-inch-long apart at the end of the bolt,
No. 10 ba re copper and then angle out to a
wires maximum separation of
6 centimeters at the top.

6 Solder together the two

resistors in series. Attach one
end to one of the electrode
terminals and the other to the
bolt terminal.

7 Connect the positive trans-

former terminal to one elec-
trode terminal and the negative
transformer terminal to the
other with 16-gauge wires.

8 Make sure the transformer

case is grounded: If it has a
grounding screw, connect the
screw to the electrical plug’s
ground conductor.
IL LU ST R AT I ON BY C LI N T FOR D

9 For safety, cover the elec-

trodes with the clear container.

10 Standing well clear of the

electrodes, plug in the trans-
former. An arc will form at the
Watch a video of the Jacob’s Ladder in action at popsci.com/itsalive.
bolt, travel up the electrodes,
and reappear at the bottom.

P OP SC I . C OM 79
Manual MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Meet a Maker

Weather Maestro
For nearly a decade, While undergoing chemother- “mathematically sympathetic”:
apy, Quintron was stuck at home. INVENTED octaves, fifths, and major thirds.
New Orleans organist and “I spent much of the time on my INSTRUMENTS “The sounds the synth makes
inventor David Rolston, front porch building prototypes,” Quintron’s other cre- are harmonious and consonant,
better known as Quintron, he says. “It brought me peace ations include the Spit
Machine, a hand organ
inspired by the healing state of
during a dark time.” The resulting mind that I was forced to be in,”
had harbored a particular that uses saliva in its
he says. He hopes the Weather
instrument, called the Weather circuitry, and the Disco
dream: to build a Warlock, has sensors that detect Light Machine, which Warlock will help others too.
synthesizer controlled by sunlight, temperature, wind, uses a drum and lights “A lot of blind people cannot
to create music.
the weather. As a touring and moisture. A custom circuit But his most notable
synchronize with cyclical changes
board transforms those weather in the day,” Quintron says. A live
musician, he could never patterns into droning noises.
invention is the Drum
Buddy, a rotating, stream of the Weather Warlock’s
find the time. And then, in Quintron tuned the synth to light-activated drum music could change that. To
machine that creates
2011, he was diagnosed a harmonious chord—E major— different rhythms and
share it, he built the website
with lymphoma. and used intervals that are sound effects. Artists weatherfortheblind.org.
Laurie Anderson and
Sean Lennon, and the
New Orleans Museum
by
“Theoretically, blind people could of Art, have purchased
Drum Buddies. A I M EE SWA RTZ

experience a sunset through sound.” The instrument was

born of necessity, Quin-
tron says. “I wanted a
synth that I could use
to play and manipulate
rhythms, while playing
the organ with the
other hand. That’s not
something you can walk
into a store and buy.”

I N S E T IM AG E C OU RT ESY DAV I D R O LSTO N

Watch Quintron perform

with the Weather Warlock at

popsci.com/quintron.

80 PO P S CI. CO M P HOTOGR AP H BY Daryn Deluco

82 POPSCI. CO M I L LU ST R AT I ON BY Peter Sucheski
There is something TERRIBLY WRONG
with the Home Security Industry
Hi. Maybe you’ve been broken into before, or maybe you haven’t. But if
you ever decide to protect your home against unfortunate events like that,
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 MARCH/APRIL 201 6

supply, I ran into trouble. The

Applause Machine is controlled
by an Arduino UNO: a tiny,
inexpensive microcontroller
that’s great at reading sensors
and managing hardware like
motors. But it has only a 5-volt
output, and the DC motor
required 12 volts to run. To solve
To build it, I started with a pair of tongs this problem, I inserted a
from my kitchen. I attached a metal spring MOSFET transistor—which
below the grippers, and put an oval-shaped allows you to control a high
DC motor between the arms. When the voltage with a low one—between
motor spins, it forces the tongs to open and the Arduino and the motor.
close, creating a clapping motion. Last but not least, I added a
As for the machine’s hands, I wanted to slider to the front of the machine
find a pair that would create the most realis- to control the speed. It can
tic clapping sound possible. So I bought four gradually increase from a snarky
different types of plastic hands from a party- slow clap to a breakneck 330
supply store. After some experimentation, I claps per minute. After testing,
decided that hollow hands made of rigid it was evident that the Applause
plastic created the best noise. I fastened Machine is set to make the
them to the tongs’ grippers with small bolts. torturous practice of applauding
When it came to the machine’s power a relic of days gone by.

Inventor and YouTuber

SIMONE GIERTZ builds
ridiculous contraptions —
because she can.

84 P O P SC I .C O M P HOTOGR A P H BY Tobias Björkgren

 The Science of
Mindfulness: A
E D TIME OF Research-Based Path
IT

FE
LIM
to Well-Being
70%

R
Taught by Professor Ronald D. Siegel
off HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

24
CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE

OR
D

H
ER C LECTURE TITLES
BY M A R
1. Why Mindfulness Matters
2. Our Troublesome Brains
3. Informal, Formal, and Intensive Practices
4. Who Am I? The Perils of Self
5. Mindfulness or Psychotherapy?
6. Attention and Empathy in Relationships
7. The Science of Compassion
and Self-Compassion
8. Tailoring Practices to Fit Changing Needs
9. Modifying Our Brain Function and Structure
10. Solitude—An Antidote to Loneliness
11. Connecting with Children and Adolescents
12. Seeing Sadness and Depression in a New Light
13. Befriending Fear, Worry, and Anxiety
14. Transforming Chronic Pain
15. Placebos, Illness, and the Power of Belief
16. Interrupting Addiction and Troublesome Habits
17. Overcoming Traumas Large and Small
18. Groundbreaking Mindfulness Programs
19. The Neurobiology of Self-Preoccupation
20. Growing Up Isn’t Easy—Facing Impermanence
21. Toward a Science of Wisdom
22. The Promise of Enlightenment
23. Mindful Ethics as a Path to Freedom
Meld Ancient Wisdom 24. The New Science of Happiness

with Modern Science The Science of Mindfulness:

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Manual MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Cheap Tricks

1 2

Listen to Records
with Your Teeth
You don’t need a fancy machine, or even ears, to listen to old records.
With science educator Sam Haynor’s bone-conducting phonograph,
you just need your teeth and some cheap everyday objects. Haynor
places the record on a DIY turntable and then attaches a needle 3 4
to a wooden skewer, which users bite. As the needle moves over
grooves in the record, vibrations travel up the skewer and into the
teeth and jaw. The brain interprets them as sound. Try it yourself,
but be warned: Playing music through your skull can feel unsettling.
“People give me that ‘what are you doing to me?’ look,” Haynor says.

TO O LS + M AT E R I A LS I N ST R U C T I O N S

• Inexpensive, disposable 1 Trace the record on a sheet

record of cardboard and use an X-Acto 5
• Card board knife to cut out the circle. Cut an
• Sharpened pencil X in its center.
• X-Acto knife 2 Remove the pencil’s metal
• P liers eraser holder with pliers, and
• Rubber bands slide it through the X so an inch
• Hot- g lue gun of the pointy end protrudes. Wrap
• Needle
rubber bands around the pencil
• Sh is h -kebab stick
as a stopper to keep it from
• Masking tape
sliding, and hot-glue it into place.
3 Secure the needle to the end of
the shish-kebab stick with tape.
4 Thread the record onto the
pencil, and place it on top of the
cardboard circle. Set the pencil’s
point on a flat surface, and twist
it to spin the record.
5 Bite the stick (don’t touch it
with your hands), then gently
lower the needle onto the record
TIME 15 minutes
so it catches a groove. Adjust COST $1
by the pressure and angle until you DIFFICULTY • • • ••
NICOLE LOU hear music in your head.

Bookmark Designing a high-quality 3-D model usually requires expensive, Onshape offers all modeling
memory-hogging software. Onshape aims to change this by and drafting tools for free,
Onshape taking computer-aided design to the cloud. The modeling but unlimited storage costs
program can run as a Web page on your browser, or as an app on $100 per month.
C O URT ESY S A M HAY N OR (5)

your mobile device. “Everyone on a product-design team now can

work faster together,” says Onshape co-founder and chairman
Jon Hirschtick, “without having to copy software or CAD files.”
Though the interface should feel familiar to veteran CAD
users, Onshape has a library of videos to get people started, as by
well as a forum for learning about and suggesting new features. J ER EM Y S. CO O K

86 PO PSCI. CO M
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Manual MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Charted Territory

Rise of the Makerspace

S OURCES : HACKERSPACES.ORG ; U.S . CE N S US B URE AU

NUMBER OF MAKERSPACES WORLDWIDE

1,500
Active or planned
1,393 spaces
Europe
556 spaces
14 X
1,000
ASE
INCRE North America
483 spaces

500
Rest of the world
354 spaces

Nerd box: Charts are

based on user-reported
0 data. The graph omits
any spaces marked as
2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 closed. Data current as
Founding Date of January 2016.

by Over the past decade, makerspaces have exploded in ranging from 3-D printers to synthetic-biology kits.
NICOLE LOU popularity all over the globe—user-reported numbers Roughly half of American adults call themselves
show nearly 1,400 active spaces, 14 times as many as in makers. “There’s an increased awareness of how broad
2006. Also called hackerspaces or innovation labs, these making can be and how inclusive it can be,” says Steve
establishments act as communal workshops where Davee, director of education at the nonprofit Maker Ed.
makers can share ideas and tools. They can pop up “But really, makerspaces in other forms have existed for
anywhere, including in schools, libraries, and community a huge amount of time: We just called them woodshops,
centers. Different locations offer different resources, home-ec centers, model shops, and computer labs.”

MAKING IN THE States with the most makerspaces States with most makerspaces per person
UNITED STATES California 56 North Dakota 5.4*
There are more

FR O M TO P: C H A RTS BY K AT I E P E EK ; I LLU ST R AT I O N BY C LI NT FO R D
than 400 U.S. sites New York 31 Wyoming 5.1
for hacking and
making, but these Florida 24 New Mexico 4.3
are the states where
you’re most likely to Texas 20 Montana 3.9
encounter them.
Michigan 17 New Hampshire 3.8

*Spaces per 1 million residents

5-Minute Project Mechanical pencils aren’t just for WA R N I NG : Wear circuit, transmitting electricity. “The
writing. Brian Jones, director of Colo- goggles, wo rk in current has to go through the small
rado State University’s Little Shop of area of the pencil lead,” Jones says,
a ve ntilated area ,
Pencil Physics, a science outreach program,
turned a stick of 5-millimeter
graphite into a tiny plasma cutter. He
and be wary of hot
wires and graphite,
“which gets really hot and vaporizes.”
The newly formed plasma can make
precise cuts in the
Plasma attached the graphite and a piece of
aluminum foil to four 9-volt batteries
wh ich ca n bur n
f ingers and even
aluminum. It probably
won’t replace tearing—
by
N I CO LE

Cutter using alligator clips. When the graph-

ite touches the foil, it completes the catch o n f i re.
but it’s certainly
more dramatic.
LOU

88 POPSCI. CO M
Chicago Doctor Invents Affordable Hearing Aid
Outperforms Many Higher Priced Hearing Aids
Reported by J. Page Affordable Hearing Aid
CHICAGO:
Ǧ ϐ
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PROǡ"
 ̈́ʹ,,"!
traditional hearing aids.  ǤIt has been declared to be the best low-cost hearing

ϐ    
“Perhaps the best quality-to-price ratio in the human voice without overly amplifying background noise.
hearing aid industry” – Dr. Babu,
Board-Certified ENT Physician
Tested by Leading Doctors and Audiologists
MD !
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'% ǯ
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Inspiration from a Surprising Source

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3  
Ǥ“I
felt that if someone could develop an affordable device RATING
like an iPhone® for about $200 that could do all sorts of
things, I could create a hearing aid at a similar price.” ©2016
Manual MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Toolbox

Pressing buttons with board. The electrodes in the

your hands is a drag. With Ultracortex record your body’s
OpenBCI, an open-source electrical signals, and the

Control Your brain-computer interface, you

can use your mind to control
smartphones, robots, and even
Ganglion transmits the signals
to your computer. This allows
you to control a mechanical

Projects with your friends’ limbs.

When DARPA funded
research into a brain-computer
device with your brain waves.
OpenBCI is intended as
a DIY device. “We want it to

Your Mind interface, artist and engineer

Joel Murphy and his former
student Conor
essentially be a Lego kit that
you get in the mail, which also
just happens to be
Russomanno built a brain-computer
by a working proto- The Ultracor tex interface,” says
C LAIRE
MALDAR E LLI
type. Then they (left) has 21 Russomanno. It
decided to further electrode holders. could be used to
refine the device A n ew m o d e l control mechanical
in order to make (below) has 61 fo r devices or comput-
the software and m o re ve rsat i l i ty. ers with brainwaves
hardware cheap or facial movement,
and accessible. or simply to watch
In 2014, the duo launched one’s own brain activity.
a successful crowdfunding The products are available
campaign and eventually for preorder on the OpenBCI
developed the Ultracortex, a website. And because both
$399 3-D-printed electroen- hardware and software are
cephalogram (EEG) headset, open-source, you can 3-D print
and the Ganglion, a $99 circuit your own headset.

BRAINY IDEAS

1 In an attempt to can send electrical

better understand impulses to a person’s
neurofeedback, arm muscles. This let
Guillaume Dumas, the hackers control
a neuroscientist at the arms of strangers
the Institut Pasteur on the other side of
in Paris, created the Atlantic Ocean.
software that uses 3 Davide Valeriani
OpenBCI to turn brain and Ana Matran-
waves into music. Fernandez, doctorate
2 At a hackathon students in brain-
organized by BCI computer interfacing
Montreal, Canadian at the University of
and Dutch partici- Essex, created an
pants combined app that allows
OpenBCI with the users to issue smart-
Human-Human Inter- phone commands
face, a DIY kit that by winking.

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Manual MARCH/APRIL 201 6

Biohacks

Grow a TO O LS + M AT E R I A LS

Thriving
• Buckets • 1 egg yolk
• S h ove l • Scissors
• Large mixing bowl • 1 two - l i te r so d a

Bacterial • Mixing spoon

• ¼-page of
shredded
bottle with to p
cut o f f
• P l a s t ic w ra p

Zoo news pa per

I N ST R U C T I O N S
• Rubbe r ba n d s

In the 1880s, microbiologist by

Sergei Winogradsky sealed pond STE P H 1 Collect half a gallon air at the top. Seal the
Y IN of mud from a pond or bottle with plastic wrap
mud in a clear tube. The column
stream, adding water and rubber bands, and
nourished a diverse mix of bac- until it has the consis- place it near a window,
teria, which formed layers based tency of a milkshake. out of direct sunlight.
on their energy sources: carbon, 2 Mix a quarter of the 4 Layers will develop
hydrogen, sulfur, or oxygen. This mud with egg yolk and over two months. Look
shredded newspaper. for dark green, purple,
year, the American Museum of Spoon the mixture into and black sulfur-eating

© A MN H/ M. S HA N L E Y
Natural History is revisiting the the bottle. Keep filling bacteria at the bottom;
Winogradsky column by display- the bottle with mud, red, orange, brown, and
and tap it periodically to purple carbon-eating
ing a 6-foot-tall version through remove air pockets. ones in the middle; and
August. Can’t visit? Gather some 3 Add an inch of pond green photosynthesizing
mud and create your own. water, leaving a little microbes at the top.
 M A R C H /A P R IL 2 0 1 6
Manual
Enviable Project

THIS MASK
LETS YOU
SMELL THE
RAINBOW
What if you could smell fuchsia 4
or taste the sound of a flute? For 1
people who have synesthesia,
these types of sensory associations
happen every day. Zachary Howard,
an aerospace engineer and an
3
artist-in-residence at Autodesk,
wanted to experience synesthesia
himself. So he created a device that
would turn colors into smells.
A sensor on Howard’s finger
detects colors. Based on the combi- 2
nation of red, green, and blue, three
tubes of essential oil—one for each
color—open into a mask to create
a blended scent. The first thing by 1 The sensor detects 2 The armband holds 3 Each test tube holds a 4 Two small fans blow
Howard touched, a gray wall, yielded
AUDRE Y LOV E

LY D IA the color of an object an Intel Edison chip, different scent. Howard over the mouths of the
a nasty mix of all the smells. But he C H AIN and sends it to a proces- which analyzes the color, used grapefruit for red, test tubes, picking up
soon discovered he loved touching sor in the armband. breaks it into an RGB tea tree for green, and scent and carrying it to
anything blue. “I’d get this amazing signal, and coordinates lavender for blue. the wearer’s nose.
blast of lavender,” he says. the scent release.

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 Go Ahead...

Q:
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swirling air, or something else.

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There’s one problem with this theory: published a paper describing an unusual
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 WORKS FOR YOU...
OR YOUR MONEY BACK !
Have a burning question?
Email it to askanything
@popsci.com or tweet it
AN S WERS BY Daniel Engber to @PopSci #AskAnything.
Jason Schneider
I LLUST RAT IO NS BY

Q:
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IMMUNE
SYSTEM?
Short answer No.

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of favor a century ago, the act of shedding gain benefits from it. And that’s OK. “Per-
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For centuries, bearded men have contended
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ceptible portions of our frame from cold.”
K-band false alarms driving you nuts? Science has since proved him right. A
2012 study in China compared the skin of
The problem: Barraged by nearly 100 men’s upper lips to their upper
K-band false alarms lately? (and hairless) cheeks. Lips were, on average,
Seems like they’re everywhere, 1 degree warmer than cheeks, suggesting a
and they hang on and on. clean-shaven man is more likely to lose body
NEW: Computerized Junk-K Fighter analyzes heat from a susceptible bare ledge.
What changed? A new safety That mystery solved, some scientists now
and rejects most blind-spot warning systems.
feature, the lane-change, or contend that beards might actually be too
blind-spot, warning often uses good at their intended jobs. Physiologist
K-band radar to “see” nearby cars. Michel Cabanac says there’s a real danger
(however slim) a beard will overheat the
V1 has the solution brain. To compensate, he theorizes, evolution
came up with an adaptation: hereditary male-
The old problem of K-band door-openers was pattern baldness. Cabanac believes that less
self-limiting. Buildings don’t move. You’re soon out hair atop the cranium offers ventilation, which
of range. But a blind-spot system may tag along makes up for the heat-trapping chin pelt.
with you for miles. You’re stuck, not knowing which He calls this hypothesis “thermoregula-
car to maneuver away from. tory compensation.” To test it he studied
39 men over 10 years. He found that, sure
Introducing Junk-K Fighter : It recognizes these enough, men with higher beard lines—shaved
junky false alarms and excludes them. And it’s now or not—had the most receding hairlines.
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Times and the Washington Post resulting in demonizing the man until they forced him to duces mystical qualities”. He never thought
an Investigative Article Report: WP 1/27/92 state: “They don’t endorse him!”. They also any more about it until Art Linkletter sent an
“10,000 people/day travel to obtain this received complaints from our customers that M.D. to Hunza to see why they lived to ad-
water that will cure anything!” However, the included Sloan Kettering Oncologists and vanced age in good health. He found that the
discovery was immediately debunked until scientists at Lawrence Livermore including people that lived the longest collected water
a UCLA Medical School professor (doing in- the top scientist at the Los Alamos Nuclear during the day from pools of water in glaciers
dependent Blood Flow Research) tested all Lab (with so many degrees after his name at the top of the mountains that later froze
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 POPULAR SCIENCE SHOWCASE
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Terminus MARCH/ APRIL 2016

Dispatch from the Future

Against a dusty and

otherworldly landscape,
science-fiction artist
Stephan Martiniere
posits that ships of
a grand scale will be
needed to create a
living, working colony
on Mars. Martiniere’s
craft evokes the space
shuttle to spark nostal-
gia, which he mixes with
considered conjecture
about the technology
needed to support those
ships, and how their
spaceports might be
built efficiently into the
landscape. Martiniere
says when building en-
vironments like this one,
100 or 150 years out is
a sweet spot: nothing
is set in stone, but it’s
not so far away that
artists can’t imagine it.
And the artists’ ideas
help people dream, he
says: “Science needs to
catch the imagination,
and artists are free to
do that—to convey the
‘what if,’ the beauty,
and the magic.”

by
KAT I E
P EEK

Dispatch from the Future

is a series that imagines—
through images and
words—how humanity will
live in the decades and
centuries to come.
ST EP HA N M A RT I N I ER E

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10 6 P OPSC I .C O M
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