Sarah Zhang

A Rare Genetic Mutation in These Siblings Makes Them Immune to Viruses

Viruses are incompetent but smart little things. Unable to make proteins on their own, they hijack ours for their own nefarious purposes. But what if we gave the viruses broken proteins? An incredibly rare genetic disorder in a brother and sister pair does exactly that, making them immune to many classes of viruses—and suggesting new…

Mushrooms Can Mine the Gold From Your Old Cellphones

Crack open your dumb old phone, and you’ll find lots of circuits and no lack of precious metals. “In 100,000 cell phones, it’s estimated that there is 2.4 kilograms of gold, more than 900 kilograms of copper, 25 kilograms of silver, and more,” according to Motherboard. Could a safer and and cheaper method of recovering…

The Cool Promise of Machines That Run on Body Heat

The human body at rest radiates 100 watts of heat—heat that does nothing other than make crowded rooms stuffy. But body heat can be converted to electricity, and new technology is always improving the process. With the rise of wearables, the body heat-powered device becomes an ever more tantalizing promise. In theory, 100 watts would…

Walk on a Magic Carpet of Light in this Moroccan Cathedral

Watch out, the ground will change beneath your feet at the Sacré Coeur in Casablanca. As part of the installation Magic Carpet 2014, an interactive light show swirls, swarms, and shimmers under the cathedral’s vaunted arches. It’s even more thrilling to watch the lights in action in the video below. Magic Carpet 2014 is the…

The Plan to Turn Jellyfish Into Diapers and Paper Towels

Of the many problems on Earth, here are two: there are too many jellyfish in the seas, and there are too many diapers in our landfills. An Israeli nanotech start-up called Cine’al says it has found the answer to both in Hydromash, a super-absorbent material made from the bodies of jellyfish. But why stop at…

Tracking an Ebola Outbreak in a City Without Maps

If you Google Map Guéckédou, the Guinean city smack dab in the Ebola virus’s deadly domain right now, you’d see just an abstract blotch of beige and yellow. Zoom all the way in on satellite view, and you can barely make out the outlines of buildings. Don’t even think about trying Street View. Google Maps…

The Military Wants to Turn Its Drones into Flying Wi-Fi Hotspots

Not to be outdone by Facebook’s vision of a drone internet, the military is whipping up unmanned aerial Wi-Fi hotspots of its own. Unused drones from the war in Iraq are getting a second life as part of DARPA’s Mobile Hotspots program. In remote areas where communication is critical, having your very own Wi-Fi drone…

What Happens to Bacteria in Space?

In the otherwise barren space 220 miles above Earth’s surface, a capsule of life-sustaining oxygen and water orbits at 17,000 miles per hour. You might know this capsule as the International Space Station (ISS), currently home to six humans—and untold billions of bacteria. Microbes have always followed us to the frontiers, but it’s only now…

Could Google Glass Really Help People with Parkinson’s?

While the world has been squabbling about Glassholes, doctors have quietly been testing the potential of Google Glass in medicine. Features that may seem silly to use in a cafe or on the subway have real advantages in the doctor’s office. Hand-free control? Remote diagnosis? On-demand medical records? Check check check. Now researchers are testing…

The Obscure Loophole That Explains Why Thieves Prefer Old, Junky Cars

Who wants to steal crappy old cars better suited for the junkyard than the road? Car thieves with a fine understanding of New York law, of course. While car thefts have gone way down in New York, thefts of junky old cars has gone up—all because a quirk in the state’s laws makes it easier…

This Pub Built With Concrete Pipes is Surprisingly Elegant and Cozy

Concrete pipes never looked so inviting. At the Prahran Hotel, a pub in Australia, stacks of pre-cast concrete tubes have been turned into cozy, wood-paneled booths for sharing a pint or two. From the outside, they look like kegs (get it?) or portholes—in any case, nothing remotely as dystopian as the phrase “concrete pipes” might…

The Plan to Demolish SF’s Old Bay Bridge Could Be Derailed By Birds

To us, the bridge is a way to get across the water, but to cormorants in San Francisco Bay, the old Bay Bridge is home sweet home. And the 800 protected birds currently nesting there are not very keen on moving to the new Bay Bridge span—despite its shiny $700,000 bird “condos.” If Caltrans can’t…

Where on Earth is this freaky lava pool? Why do people hate love locks? Is it true that fire ants love the suburbs? And what do the soon-to-be-lost sounds of the industrial age sound like? All your answers are here, in this week’s landscape reads! A Campaign to Ban Love Locks In Paris Who hates…

This Clever Newspaper Ad Hides a 3D Kitchen in the Classifieds

As far as newspaper ads go, the classifieds are an especially boring section of tiny text and identically spaced columns. But it doesn’t always have to be so! This ingenious little ad for Corona’s kitchens by Colombia-based designer Felipe Salazar plays with the geometry of classified ads. An entire kitchen, complete with gas hood and…

If Edward Hopper Used Instagram and Facebook

Edward Hopper, foremost chronicler of lonely American souls, would have found pathos in our modern world of FOMO. This clever series from Ukrainian artist Nastya Ptichek updates Hopper’s work for a social media era, and the overlay of electronic icons makes his paintings even more depressing. If social media lets us express the things we’re…

Glasgow Will Demolish Its Tallest Buildings Live On International TV

When the Commonwealth Games come to Glasgow this July, the city wants to put its best foot forward. The city thus has plans to blow up the Red Road flats, an infamous and now largely abandoned housing project, as part of its opening ceremony. A growing backlash, however, asks whether dynamiting the Red Road flats…

4 Ways Tiny Microbes Changed Life on Earth Forever

This is the microbes’ world—we just live in it. Throughout the history of Earth, microbes have radically reshaped life on the planet, from creating the very air we breath to wiping out almost all life on Earth. Don’t underestimate the power of tiny, tiny microbes populating the Earth trillions of times over. Here are some…

Tour the Fish Farm Hidden in a Hong Kong High-Rise

In cities as crowded as Hong Kong, there is nowhere to go but up up up—even for fish. So, on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise, is a mini ocean in the sky: 80,000 liters of salt water where young groupers swim under cool, blue light. Could this be the future of urban farming? While…

9 Ingenious Urban Hacks To Make the City Smarter

Did you know a bike rack can become a fold-down seat? Or that you can charge your phone at sign posts? Or that a barricade is easily repurposed as a bench? These are just some of the small but imaginative hacks that make the concrete jungle a slightly more delightful and welcoming place. Rotten Apple…

The Most Elegant iPhone Speaker Is Just A Single Piece Of Blown Glass

Here is a sleek way to showcase your iPhone’s looks and sounds. There are no wires or buttons or even plastic in this passive amp—just a single piece of glass, handcrafted to exacting proportions, that can wrap a room in sound. “My Phone Amp” is the work of glass artist Aric Snee. He blows the…