Neal Stephenson Finally Takes on Global Warming
“His superscience this time isn’t a metaverse or a space colony. It’s engineering to address an imminent threat. After a few years of unrelenting wildfires, hurricanes, disease outbreaks, and other natural disasters linked directly or indirectly to climate change, the idea that the world’s preeminent technologists might take up the cause where policymakers seem to have failed is almost hopeful.”
The Strange and Twisted Tale of Hydroxychloroquine
“What happened with hydroxychloroquine was a debacle, but retelling the story might help avert the same kind of chaos next time around.”
Nerd Cruise
An essay about what 800 nerds on a fan cruise taught the writer about life, the universe and snorkeling.
The Mystery of the Canadian Whiskey Fungus
When he arrived at the warehouse, the first thing he noticed (after “the beautiful, sweet, mellow smell of aging Canadian whiskey,” he says) was the black stuff. It was everywhere—on the walls of buildings, on chain-link fences, on metal street signs, as if a battalion of Dickensian chimney sweeps had careened through town. “In the back of the property, there was an old stainless steel fermenter tank,” Scott says. “It was lying on its side, and it had this fungus growing all over it. Stainless steel!” The whole point of stainless steel is that things don’t grow on it.
