Labs And Water Quotes

What was up with class today? It was watered-down porn. He practically had you and Patch on top of your lab table, horizontal, minus your clothes, doing the Big Deed.

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tire and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn't go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks. And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought. Grace's life fell apart because of a single word: sympathizer. My world exploded because of a different word: suicide. Correction: That was the first time my world exploded. The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it, or stop it. The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow? And the word was: Yes.

I’m starting a petition to have Coach fired,” Vee said, coming to my table. “What was up with class today? It was watered-down porn. He practically had you and Patch on top of your lab table, horizontal, minus your clothes, doing the Big Deed—” I nailed her with a look that said, Does it look like I want a replay?

To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.

Faith does not protect you. Medicine and airbags... Those are the things that protect you. God does not protect you. Intelligence protects you. Enlightenment. Put your faith in something with tangible results. How long has it been since someone walked on water? Modern miracles belong to science.. Computers, vaccines, space stations... Even the devine miracle of creation. Matter from nothing... In a lab. Who needs God? No! Science is God!

No risk is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. A lucky root will eventually find water, but its first job is to anchor -- to anchor an embryo and forever end its mobile phase, however passive that mobility was. Once the first root is extended, the plant will never again enjoy any hope (however feeble) of relocating to a place less cold, less dry, less dangerous. Indeed, it will face frost, drought, and greedy jaws without any possibility of flight. The tiny rootlet has only once chance to guess what the future years, decades -- even centuries -- will bring to the patch of soil where it sits. It assesses the light and humidity of the moment, refers to its programming, and quite literally takes the plunge.

This is how great intellectual breakthroughs usually happen in practice. It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton's famous phrase. Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.

He just cleaned the bathroom.” “So?” “I’ve been sending samples into the lab when I got bored. They are as of yet unidentified. It never occurred to me to clean the damned thing." Whiskey sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know, I know, I know—you don’t want to get blood all over it now that it’s clean.

I was dead.I was so,so dead.I was going to be expelled and then I'd never get into Georgetown,and I'd work at the diner for the rest of my life and lend would marry the dyrad lab assistant and they'd have half-tree-and-one-quarter-water-thing babies,and no one would know quite what they were,but they'd be beautiful.And I'd serve them French fries when they came home to visit.

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tires and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn’t go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks. And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought.

I met him in the language lab. In a lull between lab sections, I was editing tapes for freshman German when this shuffling man of hair came in. Possibly twenty, or forty; possibly student, or faculty, Trotskyite or Amish farmer, human or animal; a theif lumbering out of a camera shop, laden with lenses and light meters; a bear who after a terrible and violent struggle ate a photographer. This beast approached me.

Watson,” says Frank, “experiment time. Could you go into the kitchen and get one balloon, two packets of salt, three packets of pepper, and one plastic spoon?” “That sounds about as scientific as . . . my peashooter,” says Watson, heading for the kitchen as Frank and the robots finish cleaning up the lab. Watson returns with the experiment supplies. “I can’t wait to see what you make with this.” Frank rips open the salt and pepper packets and dumps everything into one pile on the table. He blows up the balloon. “Rub this on your head, Watson.” Watson rubs the balloon on his head. “Oh, this is much more scientific.” “Just watch,” says Frank. “Now put the balloon over the salt and pepper.” Watson moves the balloon. The positively charged, lighter pieces of pepper separate from the heavier pieces of salt and stick to the balloon. “Wireless,” says Frank. “And cheap. Now watch this.” Frank rubs the plastic spoon on Watson’s sweater. He turns the water on in the lab sink so that a small, steady stream flows out. “Observe.” Frank puts the spoon near the water column. “No way!” says Watson. “The water is bending toward the spoon!” Klink beeps, “In both cases, extra negative charge caused by gathering electrons . . . attracts positively charged pepper pieces and water stream.

This is meant to be in praise of the interval called hangover, a sadness not co-terminous with hopelessness, and the North American doubling cascade that (keep going) “this diamond lake is a photo lab” and if predicates really do propel the plot then you might see Jerusalem in a soap bubble or the appliance failures on Olive Street across these great instances, because “the complex Italians versus the basic Italians” because what does a mirror look like (when it´s not working) but birds singing a full tone higher in the sunshine. I´m going to call them Honest Eyes until I know if they are, in the interval called slam clicker, Realm of Pacific, because the second language wouldn´t let me learn it because I have heard of you for a long time occasionally because diet cards may be the recovery evergreen and there is a new benzodiazepene called Distance, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship. I suppose a broken window is not symbolic unless symbolic means broken, which I think it sorta does, and when the phone jangles what´s more radical, the snow or the tires, and what does the Bible say about metal fatigue and why do mothers carry big scratched-up sunglasses in their purses. Hello to the era of going to the store to buy more ice because we are running out. Hello to feelings that arrive unintroduced. Hello to the nonfunctional sprig of parsley and the game of finding meaning in coincidence. Because there is a second mind in the margins of the used book because Judas Priest (source: Firestone Library) sang a song called Stained Class, because this world is 66% Then and 33% Now, and if you wake up thinking “feeling is a skill now” or “even this glass of water seems complicated now” and a phrase from a men´s magazine (like single-district cognac) rings and rings in your neck, then let the consequent misunderstandings (let the changer love the changed) wobble on heartbreakingly nu legs into this street-legal nonfiction, into this good world, this warm place that I love with all my heart, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship, anti-showmanship.

When I got to Crude Sciences at the end of the day, Dante was waiting for me at our table. This time, with no Latin book, no journal. “Hello,” he said, pulling my chair out for me. Surprised, I sat down next to him, trying not to stare at his perfectly formed arms. “Hi,” I said, with an attempt at nonchalance. “How are you?” I could feel his eyes on me. “Fine,” I said carefully, as Professor Starking handed out our lab assignments. Dante frowned. “Not very talkative today, I see.” I thrust a thermometer into the muddy water of the fish tank in front of us, which was supposed to represent an enclosed ecosystem. “So now you want to talk? Now that you’ve finished your Latin homework?” After a prolonged period of silence, he spoke. “It was research.” “Research on what?” “It doesn’t matter anymore.” I threw him a suspicious look. “Why’s that?” “Because I realized I wasn’t paying attention to the right thing.” “Which is?” I asked, looking back at the board as I smoothed out the hem of my skirt. “You.” My lips trembled as the word left his mouth. “I’m not a specimen.” “I just want to know you.” I turned to him, wanting to ask him a million questions. I settled for one. “But I can’t know anything about you?” Dante leaned back in his chair. “My favorite author is Dante, obviously,” he said, his tone mocking me. “Though I’m partial to the Russians. I’m very fond of music. All kinds, really, though I especially enjoy Mussorgsky and Stravinsky or anything involving a violin. They’re a bit dark, no? I used to like opera, but I’ve mostly grown out of it. I have a low tolerance for hot climates. I’ve never enjoyed dessert, though I once loved cherries. My favorite color is red. I often take long walks in the woods to clear my head. As a result, I have a unique knowledge of the flora and fauna of North American. And,” he said, his eyes burning through me as I pretended to focus on our lab, “I remember everything everyone has ever told me. I consider it a special talent.” Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information, I sat there gaping, unsure of how to respond. Dante frowned. “Did I leave something out?

As her body empties, I feel more and more hollow. I think I must offer her some explanation, but when I look to her face, there is clear and perfect water swirling from her open mouth, a question in a language I cannot comprehend.

they treat it like a lab rat or a poem—break it apart, dissect it, explain it, expose the viscera. They think the Syllable is a ritual, figurative, a symbol for God, but they are wrong. When you’re bobbing in the ocean, the water does not symbolize wetness.

Recycled air that had passed through a million lungs. Water from the tap so clean it could be used for lab work, but it had been piss and shit and tears and blood and would be again. The circle of life on Ceres was so small you could see the curve. He liked it that way.

People slice up tree trunks, nail the pieces together into boxy shapes, and then go inside to sleep. Trees use the wood in their trunks for a different purpose—namely, they use it to fight with other plants. From dandelions to daffodils, from ferns to figs, from potatoes to pine trees—every plant growing on land is striving toward two prizes: light, which comes from above, and water, which comes from below. Any contest between two plants can be decided in one move, when the winner simultaneously reaches higher and digs deeper than the loser. Consider the tremendous advantage that wood confers to one of the contestants during such a battle: armed with a stiff-yet-flexible, strong-yet-light prop that separates—and connects—leaves and roots, trees have dominated the tournament for more than four hundred million years.

Do you have any idea why you might be feeling better?” “No, not really,” I said curtly. Better wasn’t even the word for how I felt. There wasn’t a word for it. It was more that things too small to mention—laughter in the hall at school, a live gecko scurrying in a tank in the science lab—made me feel happy one moment and the next like crying. Sometimes, in the evenings, a damp, gritty wind blew in the windows from Park Avenue, just as the rush hour traffic was thinning and the city was emptying for the night; it was rainy, trees leafing out, spring deepening into summer; and the forlorn cry of horns on the street, the dank smell of the wet pavement had an electricity about it, a sense of crowds and static, lonely secretaries and fat guys with bags of carry-out, everywhere the ungainly sadness of creatures pushing and struggling to live. For weeks, I’d been frozen, sealed-off; now, in the shower, I would turn up the water as hard as it would go and howl, silently. Everything was raw and painful and confusing and wrong and yet it was as if I’d been dragged from freezing water through a break in the ice, into sun and blazing cold.

I remember a biology lab in which we observed a spear-headed water worm. Like a starfish, it could grow back anything we razored off of it, even to the point of generating multiple versions of itself. I saw myself in that gliding shape. Arrow-shaped, it never arrived where it wanted to go. But it knew, when cut, to grow.

The prairie is notorious for the suddenness and violence of its weather changes, and that’s especially true in summer. All that grass gives off a tremendous amount of moisture. As the sun beats down, the water vapor rises until it condenses, sometimes as puffy, cotton-candy clouds, and sometimes as black thunderheads towering four miles high. Four

Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tires and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn’t go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks. And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought.

Because the specific heat capacity of water is higher than that of say, iron, and lower than that of air, the same amount of energy will raise the temperature of a gram of iron by almost ten times as much and a gram of air by only half as much. The higher the specific heat capacity of a given material, the more energy it takes to raise the temperature of that material by the same number of degrees.

It is rarely the isolated genius having a eureka moment alone in the lab. Nor is it merely a question of building on precedent, of standing on the shoulders of giants, in Newton’s famous phrase. Great breakthroughs are closer to what happens in a flood plain: a dozen separate tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.

Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.

All this attempt to control... We are talking about Western attitudes that are five hundred years old... The basic idea of science - that there was a new way to look at reality, that it was objective, that it did not depend on your beliefs or your nationality, that it was rational - that idea was fresh and exciting back then. It offered promise and hope for the future, and it swept away the old medieval system, which was hundreds of years old. The medieval world of feudal politics and religious dogma and hateful superstitions fell before science. But, in truth, this was because the medieval world didn't really work any more. It didn't work economically, it didn't work intellectually, and it didn't fit the new world that was emerging... But now... science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting to not fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it can not tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways - air, and water, and land - because of ungovernable science... At the same time, the great intellectual justification of science has vanished. Ever since Newton and Descartes, science has explicitly offered us the vision of total control. Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws. But in the twentieth century, that claim has been shattered beyond repair. First, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle set limits on what we could know about the subatomic world. Oh well, we say. None of us lives in a subatomic world. It doesn't make any practical difference as we go through our lives. Then Godel's theorem set similar limits to mathematics, the formal language of science. Mathematicians used to think that their language had some inherent trueness that derived from the laws of logic. Now we know what we call 'reason' is just an arbitrary game. It's not special, in the way we thought it was. And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives. It is as mundane as the rain storms we cannot predict. And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old - the dream of total control - has died, in our century. And with it much of the justification, the rationale for science to do what it does. And for us to listen to it. Science has always said that it may not know everything now but it will know, eventually. But now we see that isn't true. It is an idle boast. As foolish, and misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly... We are witnessing the end of the scientific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Because things are going very fast now... it will be in everyone's hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators. And that will force everyone to ask the same question - What should I do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot answer.

:So then my dad decided to make me a new pair. He spent forever gluing some rhinestones on an old set of lab goggles, but the goggles made me look like a human fly with bulging eyes. Dad was so proud of them, I wore the horrible things to school every day and took them off the moment I got inside. Then I walked around squinting. I was so relieved when a wave knocked the goggles off our zode into the water, and I begged Mariah not to find them for me.:

Jake leaves unmentioned the fact that she'd long ago filed motherhood away in the locked cupboard that contains everything that the Withering has made impossible for people like her: her own home, a steady relationship, a research lab, a tenured teaching position. And even if she did have the money, why would anyone willingly bring a child into such a fallen, desolate world? Children require hope and prosperity as trees require light and water, and Jake Greenwood is all tapped out of both.

I keep thinking about when we were young and we played ‘Candor,’” he says. “How I used to sit you down in a chair in the living room and as you questions? Remember?” “Yes,” I say. I lean my hips into the lab table. “You used to find the pulse in my wrist and tell me that if I lied, you would be able to tell, because the Candor can always tell when other people are lying. It wasn’t very nice.” Caleb laughs. “That one time, you confessed to stealing a book from the school library just as Mom came home--” “And I had to go to the librarian and apologize!” I laugh too. “That librarian was awful. She always called everyone ‘young lady’ or ‘young man.’” “Oh, she loved me, though. Did you know that when I was a library volunteer and was supposed to be shelving books during my lunch hour, I was really just standing in the aisles and reading? She caught me a few times and never said anything about it.” “Really?” I feel a twinge in my chest. “I didn’t know that.” “There was a lot we didn’t know about each other, I guess.” He taps his fingers on the table. “I wish we had been able to be more honest with each other.” “Me too.” “And it’s too late now, isn’t it.” He looks up. “Not for everything.” I pull out a chair from the lab table and sit in it. “Let’s play Candor. I’ll answer a question and then you have to answer a question. Honestly, obviously.” He looks a little exasperated, but he plays along. “Okay. What did you really do to break those glasses in the kitchen when you claimed that you were taking them out to clean water spots off them?” I roll my eyes. “That’s the one question you want an honest answer to? Come on, Caleb.

In the first year, I would glimpse my share of death. I sometimes saw it while peeking around corners, other times while feeling embarrassed to be caught in the same room. Here were a few of the people I saw die: 1. An alcoholic, his blood no longer able to clot, who bled to death into his joints and under his skin. Before he became delirious, he looked up at me and said "It's not fair - I've been diluting my drinks with water." 2. A pathologist, dying of pneumonia, wheezing her death rattle before heading down to be autopsied - her final trip to the pathology lab.

No Sith remain,” Tashu says. “And the lone Jedi that exists—the son of Anakin Skywalker—possesses an untouchable soul. At least for now. We must instead move toward the dark side. Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, asteroids, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water.

Good good. Enough talk. Check breeder tanks, please.' 'Yeah, yeah. Let me get some water first.' He bounces and skitters down his tube to the lab. 'Why humans need water so much, question? Inefficient life-forms!' ... 'Eiridians need water too, you know.' 'We keep inside. Closed system. Some inefficiencies inside, but we get all water we need from food. Humans leak! Gross!' I laugh as I float in to the lab where Rocky is waiting. 'On Earth, we have a scary, deadly creature called a spider. You look like one of those, just so you know.' 'Good. Proud. I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob.

Life, a miracle of nature, an evolved molecule of matter, blossomed in the vast expanse of oceans. Methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor When joined under the radio-active sun, The molecules of non living matter underwent massive changes and became live. It's this accident that made the molecule of protein, Which even Stanley Miller reproduced in lab. Evolution went on, and on and changed , from amoeba to dinosaurs, from ape to man, It was an amazing architecture of nature , Which still continue improving human brain. The amazing creation nature, the man, kept on exploring the mysteries of nature, and succeeded in duplicating nature's marvel through his latest invention - the cloning, and succeeded in decoding even the genetic code. Still we have to salute the mother nature, which has many more mysteries in store!.

When Dr. Ramasamy first lectured to their class in the century-old Donovan Auditorium, even the murmuring backbenchers were silenced when the tall, confident woman in a short-sleeved lab coat floated in. She had launched right into inflammation, the body’s first response to any threat, the common denominator of all disease. In minutes she had drawn them into the thick of a battle: the invaders (typhoid bacteria) are spotted by the hilltop sentries (macrophages), who send signals back to the castle (the bone marrow and lymph nodes). The few aging veterans of previous battles with typhoid (memory T-lymphocytes) are roused from their beds, summoned to hastily teach untested conscripts the specific typhoid-grappling skills needed, and then to arm them with custom lances designed solely to latch onto and pierce the typhoid shield—in essence, the veterans clone their younger selves. The same veterans of prior typhoid campaigns also assemble a biological-warfare platoon (B lymphocytes) who hastily manufacture a one-of-a-kind boiling oil (antibodies) to pour over the castle wall; it will melt the typhoid intruders’ shields, while not harming others. Meanwhile, having heard the call to battle, the rogue mercenaries (neutrophils), armed to the teeth,

> First, move out of that big Manhattan loft and head upstate. You'll find a little place you can afford and start a new life. Maybe get a job teaching at a community college. Maybe meet a girl at Best Buy, start dating. She'll put up with your crazy habits. You'll put up with her musical tastes. > I don't understand. What's going on here? > Time will pass. You'll make it official. You'll settle down, get a starter house. Two boys. Yellow Lab. Minivan. > That. . . That isn't me. > Why not? It could be. You'll make art in the basement for yourself for a while. The boys'll get married. Have kids of their own. Maybe y'get divorced. Meet someone new. And yeah, you'll wonder what could have been. But less, as the years go by. "Just wasn't meant to be," you'll say. And there'll be good times along the way. Sweet memories. Until it starts to wind down. Until your body fails. Until you don't recognize the world around you. Until it's time to go. > That. . . isn't me. It can't be. > Why not? It's a decent life. Food, sex, running water, a roof. Not to mention love and family. Those aren't small things. > But it's not enough. > You kids, you're so spoiled! Y'know billions would kill for a life like that. So what if the art thing didn't work out? Is it really that important? > It's all I have.

During homeroom, before first period, I start a bucket list in one of my notebooks. First on the list? 1) Eat in the cafeteria. Sit with people. TALK TO THEM. 2) And…that’s all I can come up with for now. But this is good. One task to work on. No distractions. I can do this. When my lunch period rolls around, I forgo the safety of my bag lunch and the computer lab and slip into the pizza line, wielding my very own tray of semi-edible fare for the first time in years. “A truly remarkable sight.” Jensen cuts into line beside me, sliding his tray next to mine on the ledge in front of us. He lifts his hands and frames me with his fingers, like he’s shooting a movie. “In search of food, the elusive creature emerges from her den and tries her luck at the watering hole." I shake my head, smiling, moving down the line. “Wow, Peters. I never knew you were such a huge Animal Planet fan.” “I’m a fan of all things nature. Birds. Bees. The like.” He grabs two pudding cups and drops one on my tray. “Pandas?” I say. “How did you know? The panda is my spirit animal.” “Oh, good, because Gran has this great pattern for an embroidered panda cardigan. It would look amazing on you.” “Um, yeah, I know. It was on my Christmas list, but Santa totally stiffed me." I laugh as I grab a carton of milk. So does he. He leans in closer. “Come sit with me.” “At the jock table? Are you kidding?” I hand the cashier my lunch card. Jensen squints his eyes in the direction of his friends. “We’re skinny-ass basketball players, Wayfare. We don’t really scream jock.” “Meatheads, then?” “I believe the correct term is Athletic Types.” We step out from the line and scan the room. “So where were you planning on sitting?" “I was thinking Grady and Marco were my safest bet.” “The nerd table?” I gesture to myself, especially my glasses. “I figure my natural camouflage will help me blend, yo.” He laughs, his honey-blond hair falling in front of his eyes. “And hey,” I say, nudging him with my elbow, “last I heard, Peters was cool with nerdy.” He claps me gently on the back. “Good luck, Wayfare. I’m pulling for ya.

Washington University found that adding a single extra gene dramatically boosted a mouse’s memory and ability. These “smart mice” could navigate mazes faster, remember events better, and outperform other mice in a wide variety of tests. They were dubbed “Doogie mice,” after the precocious character on the TV show Doogie Howser, M.D. Dr. Tsien began by analyzing the gene NR2B, which acts like a switch controlling the brain’s ability to associate one event with another. (Scientists know this because when the gene is silenced or rendered inactive, mice lose this ability.) All learning depends on NR2B, because it controls the communication between memory cells of the hippocampus. First Dr. Tsien created a strain of mice that lacked NR2B, and they showed impaired memory and learning disabilities. Then he created a strain of mice that had more copies of NR2B than normal, and found that the new mice had superior mental capabilities. Placed in a shallow pan of water and forced to swim, normal mice would swim randomly about. They had forgotten from just a few days before that there was a hidden underwater platform. The smart mice, however, went straight to the hidden platform on the first try. Since then, researchers have been able to confirm these results in other labs and create even smarter strains of mice. In 2009, Dr. Tsien published a paper announcing yet another strain of smart mice, dubbed “Hobbie-J” (named after a character in Chinese cartoons). Hobbie-J was able to remember novel facts (such as the location of toys) three times longer than the genetically modified strain of mouse previously thought to be the smartest. “This adds to the notion that NR2B is a universal switch for memory formation,” remarked Dr. Tsien. “It’s like taking Michael Jordon and making him a super Michael Jordan,” said graduate student Deheng Wang. There are limits, however, even to this new mice strain. When these mice were given a choice to take a left or right turn to get a chocolate reward, Hobbie-J was able to remember the correct path for much longer than the normal mice, but after five minutes he, too, forgot. “We can never turn it into a mathematician. They are rats, after all,” says Dr. Tsien. It should also be pointed out that some of the strains of smart mice were exceptionally timid compared to normal mice. Some suspect that, if your memory becomes too great, you also remember all the failures and hurts as well, perhaps making you hesitant. So there is also a potential downside to remembering too much.

Dickens knew there were vast reserves of methane hydrate trapped frozen in sea-beds all around the world and wondered what would happen if a lot of that frozen methane on the sea floor had melted from a solid into a gas, and bubbled up from the ocean’s depths? Would it be enough to account for the “signature” of carbon-12 that geologists were finding in the rocks associated with the Permian Mass Extinction? So he went back to the lab and melted frozen methane in water warm enough. The results were dramatic. The gas not only dissolved into the water, but it also rose up out of the water and into the air. Dickens published a paper in 1999 suggesting that a 5 degree Celsius increase in ocean temperatures would have been adequate to melt enough methane hydrate crystals to create the Permian carbon-12 signature. And such a massive release of methane, itself a greenhouse gas vastly more potent than CO2, would also trigger a catastrophic, swift warming of the planet.

Dr Isabella Perugini stopped on the bank opposite us, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her white lab coat falling below her knees. She slid off her high heeled shoes and began to pick her way across the stream, trying to balance on the rocks jutting out of the water. Her dark complexion was more flushed than usual, her eyes narrowed at me. “You again?” She said it as she executed a hop from one rock to another. “I thought I sorted you out!

AMERICAN WHEAT OR RYE BEER Refreshing wheat or rye beers can display more hop character and less yeast character than their German cousins. This is a beginner-level style that can be brewed by extract or all-grain methods. Ferments at 65° F (18° C). OG FG IBU Color Alcohol 1.040-1.055 (10-13.6 °P) 1.008-1.013 (2.1-3.3 °P) 15-30 3-6 SRM 6-12 EBC 4-5.5% ABV 3.2-4.3% ABW Keys to Brewing American Wheat or Rye Beer: This easy-drinking beer style usually has a subtly grainy wheat character, slightly reminiscent of crackers. The hop flavor and aroma are more variable, with some versions having no hop character, while others have a fairly noticeable citrus or floral flair. Even when the hops are more prominent, they should not be overwhelming, and the hop bitterness should be balanced. The rye version of this style has a slight spicy, peppery note from the addition of rye in place of some or all of the wheat. The key mistake many brewers make is in assuming that American wheat beer should be similar to German hefeweizen. However, this style should not have the clove and banana character of a hefeweizen. This beer should not be as malty (bready) as a German hefeweizen, either, so all-grain brewers will want to use a less malty American two-row malt. To get the right fermentation profile, it is important to use a fairly neutral yeast strain, one that doesn’t produce a lot of esters like the German wheat yeasts do. While you can substitute yeast like White Labs WLP001 California Ale, Wyeast 1056 American Ale, or Fermentis Safale US-05, a better choice is one that provides some crispness, such as an altbier or Kölsch yeast, and fermentation at a cool temperature. RECIPE: KENT'S HOLLOW LEG It was the dead of winter and I was in Amarillo, Texas, on a business trip with Kent, my co-worker. That evening at dinner I watched as Kent drank a liter of soda, several glasses of water, and three or four liters of American wheat beer. I had a glass of water and one liter of beer, and I went to the bathroom twice. Kent never left the table. When I asked Kent about his superhuman bladder capacity, he thought it was due to years of working as a programmer glued to his computer and to the wonderful, easy-drinking wheat beer. This recipe is named in honor of Kent’s amazing bladder capacity. This recipe has a touch more hop character than many bottled, commercial examples on the market, but a lot less than some examples you might find. If you want less hop character, feel free to drop the late hop additions. If you really love hops and want to make a beer with lots of hop flavor and aroma, increase the late hop amounts as you see fit. However, going past the amounts listed below might knock it out of consideration in many competitions for being “too hoppy for style,” no matter how well it is brewed. OG: 1.052 (12.8 °P) FG: 1.012 (3.0 °P) ADF: 77% IBU: 20 Color: 5 SRM (10 EBC) Alcohol: 5.3% ABV (4.1% ABW) Boil: 60 minutes Pre-Boil Volume: 7 gallons (26.5L) Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.044 (11.0 °P) Extract Weight Percent Wheat LME (4 °L) 8.9 lbs. (4.03kg) 100 Hops   IBU Willamette 5.0% AA, 60 min. 1.0 oz. (28g) 20.3 Willamette 5.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Centennial 9.0% AA, 0 min. 0.3 oz. (9g) 0 Yeast White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen, Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, or Fermentis Safale US-05 Fermentation and Conditioning Use 10 grams of properly rehydrated dry yeast, 2 liquid yeast packages, or make a starter. Ferment at 65° F (18° C). When finished, carbonate the beer to approximately 2.5 volumes. All-Grain Option Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt and 6 lbs. (2.72kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C). Rye Option This beer can also be made with a portion of malted rye. The rye gives the beer a slightly spicy note and adds a certain creamy mouthfeel. Replace the wheat extract with 6 lbs. (2.72kg) American two-row malt, 3.75 lbs. (1.70kg) rye malt, and 3 lbs. (1.36kg) wheat malt. Mash at 152° F (67° C).

The nerve of him. How dare he imply that she might try and manipulate a scientific study. “Now it’s your turn to listen, Mr. Mayor. I don’t give a damn about your political ambitions, or your plans for Coral Beach,” she hissed. “They mean nothing to me. The only thing I care about is the condition of this town’s reef. You managed to get one thing right, though. I do have a good reputation. It’s excellent, actually. Say one thing to defame it, and I will sink your political career faster than the Titanic.” Incensed, Lily shoved the car door open and scrambled out. Sean’s opened in tandem. His words carried over the sound of doors slamming, one after the other. “I always think it’s great to clear the air like this. Must admit, I’m looking forward to these next few weeks. Diving with a world-renowned scientist. Hey, maybe I’ll even drop by the lab; we could do an experiment together, just for old times’ sake. Wouldn’t that be fun, Lily?” Lily glared at his smiling face. Her most fervent wish was that they might already be in the water. So she could drown him. As if he could read her mind, Sean shook his head. “Shame on you, Lily,” he cheerfully mocked. “Now, let’s see a big, happy smile for your Granny May.

we will establish the first-ever national Water Innovation Lab to pioneer advances in water technology, just as our existing national labs have done for energy.

As a tree grows, its lower branches become obsolete, too shaded by the newer ones above to be of any further use. A willow tree loads these used branches with reserves, fattens and strengthens them and then dehydrates their base such that they snap off cleanly and fall into the river. Carried away on the water, one out of millions of these sticks will wash up onto a bank and replant itself, and before long that very same tree is now growing elsewhere. What was once a twig will be forced to function as a trunk, stranded under conditions it had never considered. Every willow tree features more than ten thousand such snap-off points; it sheds 10 percent of its branches in this way every single year. Over the decades one—maybe two—of these will successfully take root downriver and grow into a genetically identical doppelgänger.

Howard Hughes, who’d lent me a pair of his chemists and a lab to assist in my nonmilitary invention ideas, like the bouillon-type cubes that could turn water into a soda pop similar to Coca-Cola.

In order to accumulate all of the soil nutrients that thirty-five pounds of leaves require, our tree must first absorb and then evaporate at least eight thousand gallons of water from the soil. That’s enough to fill a tanker truck. That’s enough to keep twenty-five people alive for a year. That’s enough to make you worry about when it is next going to rain. ***

At the lab my professor suggested that, since it was such an amazing day, perhaps I could take the exam outside in the wetland wilderness reserve that surrounded the lab. The view of the swamp was stunning! Somehow it had never seemed beautiful to me before. She asked that I take my notebook and pencil out. “Please draw for me the complete development of the chick from fertilization to hatching. That is the only question.” I gasped, “But that is the entire course!” “Yes, I suppose it is, but make-up exams are supposed to be harder than the original, aren’t they?” I couldn’t imagine being able to regurgitate the entire course. As I sat there despondently, I closed my eyes and was flooded with grief. Then I noticed that my inner visual field was undulating like a blanket that was being shaken at one end. I began to see a movie of fertilization! When I opened my eyes a few minutes later, I realized that the movie could be run forward and back and was clear as a bell in my mind’s eye, even with my physical eyes open. Hesitantly, I drew the formation of the blastula, a hollow ball of cells that develops out of the zygote (fertilized egg). As I carefully drew frame after frame of my inner movie, it was her turn to gape! The tiny heart blossomed. The formation of the notochord, the neural groove, and the beginnings of the nervous system were flowing out of my enhanced imagery and onto the pages. A stupendous event—the animated wonder of embryonic growth and the differentiation of cells—continued at a rapid pace. I drew as quickly as I could. To my utter amazement, I was able to carefully and completely replicate the content of the entire course, drawing after drawing, like the frames of animation that I was seeing as a completed film! It took me about an hour and a quarter drawing as fast as I could to reproduce the twenty-one-day miracle of chick formation. Clearly impressed, my now suddenly lovely professor smiled and said, “Well, I suppose you deserve an A!” The sunlight twinkled on the water, the cattails waved in the gentle breeze, and the gentle wonder of life was everywhere. Reports:

Aboveground plant tissue works to capture light and gases from the atmosphere, which are converted to sugars within the leaves. Belowground tissue strives to absorb water and the rich nutrients that are dissolved within this water, in order to further build sugars up into proteins.

I could work with my brain in my hands for hours, move it into my head for twenty minutes, and then shunt it back into my fingers in the same way that I could slosh water back and forth in a half-full bucket. I

EVERY LIVING CELL IS essentially just a tiny bag of water. Viewed from this perspective, life (the verb) is little more than the construction and reconstruction of trillions of bags of water. One thing that makes this difficult is that there is not enough water.

Every living being on the Earth’s surface has been conscripted into a never-ending war over a total amount of water that equals less than one-thousandth of one percent of the planet’s total. Trees

From dandelions to daffodils, from ferns to figs, from potatoes to pine trees—every plant growing on land is striving toward two prizes: light, which comes from above, and water, which comes from below. Any contest between two plants can be decided in one move, when the winner simultaneously reaches higher and digs deeper than the loser.

If you’re stuck without lab-tested coffee, here is how to reduce your risks of getting mold toxins in your coffee. First, look for single-estate coffee. That means the beans come from one place, so if you’re lucky enough to get mold-free beans, you don’t have to worry about them being mixed with other moldy beans. This is why blends of coffee are a bad idea, even if they taste good. Second, look for washed coffee, because washed coffee is better than natural-process coffee. Steer clear of natural process entirely. The third thing to do is to look for Central American coffee, which is often better than coffee from other regions. The fourth thing to do is to look for high elevation, as that can reduce mold problems by making stronger plants. Remember, an “organic” label means nothing—most of the best coffees come from small plantations that could never afford an organic certification because the paperwork cost would put them out of business. Plus, organic coffee can sit in dirty water and grow mold toxins just like conventional coffee can.

Can we attest to moments of blowing it? I'm not a very good cook. One day, while my husband and I worked upstairs in our home offices, I heard a loud pop. The pop sounded like a gun. We both jumped up and ran downstairs. I turned toward the kitchen and found our lab looking up at the stove, tail wagging as if to say, "Up there!" Upon further investigation, I realized I forgot that I had put eggs in a pot to boil My forgetfulness created an unfolding of events that ultimately led to eggs exploding. Fragments of egg were everywhere! In my attempt to fix the situation, I grabbed the scalding pot and thrust it under cold water. My husband yelled, "No!" You guessed it. When the water hit the eggs, those that hadn't already burst exploded at that very moment. Shrapnel of egg hit me square in the face speckled my hair, and splattered my clothes. I stood dumbfounded--frozen as if I really were hit by shrapnel. I expected my husband to do what I felt Jesus would have done--grab a towel and help clean me up. Instead, he stood there, lips curled and eyebrows raised, and said, "You have egg on your face." Isn't that what we often do when the men in our life mess up? Sometimes our messes lead to those moments; sometimes they leave us broken and weeping--or at the very least, with egg on our faces.

Would anyone test the memory of human children by throwing them into a swimming pool to see if they remember where to get out? Yet the Morris Water Maze is a standard memory test used every day in hundreds of laboratories that make rats frantically swim in a water tank with high walls until they come upon a submerged platform that saves them. In subsequent trials, the rats need to remember the platform’s location. There is also the Columbia Obstruction Method, in which animals have to cross an electrified grid after varying periods of deprivation, so researchers can see if their drive to reach food or a mate (or for mother rats, their pups) exceeds the fear of a painful shock. Stress is, in fact, a major testing tool. Many labs keep their animals at 85 percent of typical body weight to ensure food motivation.

How would you like to come to the science room after school and help feed the fish and the lizard? While you’re there, we could look at obsidian under the microscope.” Ben loved doing after-school chores in the science lab, and he was especially fascinated by the microscope. It wasn’t long before he was collecting water samples from a nearby stream and studying them under the microscope. When he thought about his new interest in science, Ben realized it had everything to do with turning off the television and reading books from the library. In fact, he realized that reading those books was helping in every area of his schooling.

MURRAY HILL’S FIRST BUILDING—Building 1, as it was eventually known—officially opened in 1942.4 Inside it was a model of sleek and flexible utility. Every office and every lab was divided into six-foot increments so that spaces could be expanded or shrunk depending on needs, thanks to a system of soundproofed steel partition walls that could be moved on short notice. Thus a research team with an eighteen-foot lab might, if space allowed, quickly expand their work into a twenty-four-foot lab. Each six-foot space, in addition, was outfitted with pipes providing all the basic needs of an experimentalist: compressed air, distilled water, steam, gas, vacuum, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. And there was both DC and AC power. From the outside, the Murray Hill complex appeared vaguely H-shaped. Most of the actual laboratories were located in two long wings, each four stories high, which were built in parallel and were connected by another wing.

Although the nucleus might have been recognized by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the late 17th century, it was not until 1831 that it was reported as a specific structure in orchid epidermal cells by a Scottish botanist, Robert Brown (better known for recognizing ‘Brownian movement’ of pollen grains in water). In 1879, Walther Flemming observed that the nucleus broke down into small fragments at cell division, followed by re-formation of the fragments called chromosomes to make new nuclei in the daughter cells. It was not until 1902 that Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri independently linked chromosomes directly to mammalian inheritance. Thomas Morgan’s work with fruit flies (Drosophila) at the start of the 20th century showed specific characters positioned along the length of the chromosomes, followed by the realization by Oswald Avery in 1944 that the genetic material was DNA. Some nine years later, James Watson and Francis Crick showed the structure of DNA to be a double helix, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins, whose laboratory had provided the evidence that led to the discovery. Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray diffraction images of DNA from the Wilkins lab had been the key to DNA structure, died of cancer aged 37 in 1958, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. Watson and Crick published the classic double helix model in 1953. The final piece in the jigsaw of DNA structure was produced by Watson with the realization that the pairing of the nucleotide bases, adenine with thymine and guanine with cytosine, not only provided the rungs holding the twisting ladder of DNA together, but also provided a code for accurate replication and a template for protein assembly. Crick continued to study and elucidate the base pairing required for coding proteins, and this led to the fundamental ‘dogma’ that ‘DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein’. The discovery of DNA structure marked an enormous advance in biology, probably the most significant since Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species .

Blood glucose instability is a huge problem that affects the moods of millions of people. The brain accounts for only about 2 percent of body weight, but requires 25 percent of all blood pumped by the heart (up to 50 percent in kids). Therefore, low blood sugar hits the brain hard, causing depression, anxiety, and lassitude. If you often become uncomfortably hungry, you’ve got a serious problem and should solve it. Eat high-protein, nutrient-dense meals, and snack enough to keep your blood sugar up, but not with insulin-stimulating sweets or starches. Remember that hunger kills brain cells, just like getting drunk. Be careful of caffeine, which causes blood sugar swings, and never crash diet. Food sensitivities are common reactions that are not classic food allergies, so most conventional allergists underestimate the damage they do. They play a major role in mood disruption, much more frequently than most people realize. They cause chemical reactions in the body that destabilize blood sugar and wreak havoc upon hormonal and neurotransmitter balance. This can trigger depression, anxiety, impaired concentration, insomnia, and hyperactivity. The most common sensitivities, unfortunately, are to the foods people most often overconsume: wheat, milk, eggs, corn, soy, and peanuts. The average American gets about 75 percent of her calories from just 10 favorite foodstuffs, and this narrow range of eating disrupts the digestive process and causes abnormal reactions. If a particular food doesn’t agree with you and commonly causes heartburn, gas, bloating, water weight gain, a craving for more, or a burst of nervous energy, you’re probably reactive to it. There are several good books on the subject, and there are many labs that test for sensitivities. Ask a chiropractor, naturopath, or doctor of integrative medicine about them. Don’t expect much help from a conventional allergist. Exercise and Mood Dozens of studies indicate that exercise is often as effective for depression as medication, partly because it increases production of stimulating hormones, such as norepinephrine, and also because it increases oxygen flow to the brain. Exercise can, in addition, help relieve and prevent anxiety, creating a so-called tranquilizer effect that persists for about 4 hours after exercising. Exercise also decreases the biological stress response, which dampens the automatic fear reaction. It is also uniquely effective at causing secretion of Nerve Growth Factor, one of the limited number of substances that cause brain cells to grow. Another benefit of exercise is that it increases endorphin output by about 500 percent and decreases the incidence of major and minor illnesses. For mood, the ideal amount is 30 to 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise daily. Studies show that exercising less than 30 minutes or more than 1 hour decreases mood benefits.

When I say we, I'm referring to society: copywriters, companies, and overall general opinion; I am in no way taking personal responsibility. We/they market to women like they are giant toddlers. This endless, pejorative, female-targeted infantilization of the English language when it's directed toward women: "Mama Bear needs her beauty rest!" "Rockstar gal gets her glam on!" "Work it, she-entrepreneur!" "Be a diva-licious ass-kicker in stilettos! The biggest, badass, boss-babe in herstory! The fiercest, she-matologist working in the blood lab!" This pervasive rhetoric is basically watered down, digestible empowerment designed to get a woman's money. It's the advertising equivalent of a "Live Laugh Love" sign.

Despite Noetic Science’s use of cutting-edge technologies, the discoveries themselves were far more mystical than the cold, high-tech machines that were producing them. The stuff of magic and myth was fast becoming reality as the shocking new data poured in, all of it supporting the basic ideology of Noetic Science—the untapped potential of the human mind. The overall thesis was simple: We have barely scratched the surface of our mental and spiritual capabilities. Experiments at facilities like the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in California and the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) had categorically proven that human thought, if properly focused, had the ability to affect and change physical mass. Their experiments were no “spoon-bending” parlor tricks, but rather highly controlled inquiries that all produced the same extraordinary result: our thoughts actually interacted with the physical world, whether or not we knew it, effecting change all the way down to the subatomic realm. Mind over matter. In 2001, in the hours following the horrifying events of September 11, the field of Noetic Science made a quantum leap forward. Four scientists discovered that as the frightened world came together and focused in shared grief on this single tragedy, the outputs of thirty-seven different Random Event Generators around the world suddenly became significantly less random. Somehow, the oneness of this shared experience, the coalescing of millions of minds, had affected the randomizing function of these machines, organizing their outputs and bringing order from chaos. The shocking discovery, it seemed, paralleled the ancient spiritual belief in a “cosmic consciousness”—a vast coalescing of human intention that was actually capable of interacting with physical matter. Recently, studies in mass meditation and prayer had produced similar results in Random Event Generators, fueling the claim that human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body . . . a highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world. Katherine had been fascinated by McTaggart’s book The Intention Experiment, and her global, Web-based study—theintentionexperiment.com—aimed at discovering how human intention could affect the world. A handful of other progressive texts had also piqued Katherine’s interest. From this foundation, Katherine Solomon’s research had vaulted forward, proving that “focused thought” could affect literally anything—the growth rate of plants, the direction that fish swam in a bowl, the manner in which cells divided in a petri dish, the synchronization of separately automated systems, and the chemical reactions in one’s own body. Even the crystalline structure of a newly forming solid was rendered mutable by one’s mind; Katherine had created beautifully symmetrical ice crystals by sending loving thoughts to a glass of water as it froze. Incredibly, the converse was also true: when she sent negative, polluting thoughts to the water, the ice crystals froze in chaotic, fractured forms. Human thought can literally transform the physical world.

Sometimes when I look back and analyze my past, I think the catalyst behind this story was my passion for science. I remember looking at seaweed and pond water microorganisms under a microscope during my Physical Science class my freshman year in high school and I felt exhilarated. My curiosity was awoken and I found myself instantly in love with the subject. Then, during my sophomore year in Biology, I single handedly dissected a cow’s eye and heart while my lab partner—and half the class—were busy passing out or vomiting in the bathroom, and that was it. The road ahead was clear. Set. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.

for pub meals and never forgot either of their birthdays. The truth was, if he could ask Cadi if she minded, she’d probably stare at him with big brown eyes, curled up on the sofa next to her Golden Lab pal Bouncer, and likely say, ‘And your point is?’ Molly, on the other hand, was a different kettle of herring. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,’ she said when he explained that he was unlikely to be home at anything like a reasonable time and so had okayed it with the Dawes for Cadi to stay with them overnight. That way, he was certain she’d get a walk. ‘I could have done that,’ Molly said, piqued. ‘Yes, I realise that, but the weather is, for want of a better word, shite. And you’re still at Gwen’s, right?’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘You told me this morning.’ ‘Did I? For a minute there I thought you had a GPS tracer on my car.’ ‘That can be arranged. I’m well aware you can look after yourself, Molly, but the whole point of you staying at mine is that I’m there.’ ‘As a minder?

•​Growth media are used to grow microorganisms in a lab setting. Some media are liquids; others are more solid or gel-like. A growth medium provides nutrients, including water, various salts, a source of carbon (like glucose), and a source of nitrogen and amino acids (like yeast extract) so microorganisms can grow and reproduce. Ingredients in a growth medium can be modified to grow unique types of microorganisms.

It happened in science lab on the very first day of their junior year. The chemistry teacher had handed her a beaker of some mysterious liquid and told her to carry it to her lab table. She had almost reached her seat when Jerome Hollis caught her eye and smiled. She blushed and tripped over her own feet. He plucked the beaker from her hands as she fell, then helped her stand up. “Thanks,” she said breathlessly. “For what?” He handed the flask back and her heart gave a little flip. He had straight black hair, hazel eyes, and black-framed glasses. He looked cute, in a nerdy-but-hip kind of way. She tried to collect herself. “For saving me from a horrible, disfiguring scar, of course,” she said. “After all, if I had been splashed with this, um—” She gingerly held the flask aloft. “Saline solution,” he said. “Otherwise known as salt water. You would have been fine.” “Oh.” She put the flask down and looked away. “Although,” he added thoughtfully, “if you had dropped the beaker, the gravitational force and speed of descent would have meant that it would have, in all probability, shattered.” Kate glanced back at him. “The force could have sent a shard of glass into my eye, blinding me,” she suggested. “Or cut a vein, causing a massive loss of blood. When you take all the disastrous possibilities into account—” “You should be given a medal for heroism,” Kate finished. “I can’t believe they’re not pinning it on my shirt right now.” He smiled, and she was lost.

The company currently controls more than twenty thousand patents, more than all but a few dozen companies in the world. This has led to some grumbling that IV is a “patent troll,” accumulating patents so it can extort money from other companies, via lawsuit if necessary. But there is little hard evidence for such claims. A more realistic assessment is that IV has created the first mass market for intellectual property. Its ringleader is a gregarious man named Nathan, the same Nathan we met earlier, the one who hopes to enfeeble hurricanes by seeding the ocean with skirted truck tires. Yes, that apparatus is an IV invention. Internally it is known as the Salter Sink because it sinks warm surface water and was originally developed by Stephen Salter, a renowned British engineer who has been working for decades to harness the power of ocean waves. By now it should be apparent that Nathan isn’t just some weekend inventor. He is Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft. He co-founded IV in 2000 with Edward Jung, a biophysicist who was Microsoft’s chief software architect. Myhrvold played a variety of roles at Microsoft: futurist, strategist, founder of its research lab, and whisperer-in-chief to Bill Gates. “I don’t know anyone I would say is smarter than Nathan,” Gates once observed.

The power of energy fields, superdiluted water, stainless steel needles, and the doctor in the white lab coat is real. We’ve seen it heal. We’ve seen it change lives and bring loved ones back from the edge of despair and death.

boils.” Terrin didn’t jump at the interruption of his thoughts, but only because he’d come to expect it. The voice was perky and upbeat and annoying as all hell. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathered his patience and turned to face Petty Officer Third Class Francesca Hayden, apparently the most cheerful and effervescent computer technician in the whole Spartan Navy. Even when she was standing still, she gave the impression of constantly bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Pardon?” he said, the actual content of her words lost in his irritation. “It’s just a saying my great grandmother used to tell me,” she clarified, still grinning brightly, her teeth almost painfully white in the glare of the temporary lighting they’d set up in the auxiliary control center down on the third level of the Terminus facility. There’d been too much damage to the primary control center from the fight with Starkad, and this one had come with actual, physical input terminals instead of haptic holograms. “If you watch a pot of water on the stove, it seems like it takes forever to boil, you know.” “I don’t believe I’ve ever had the occasion to boil water on a stove,” he admitted. He winced, realizing it made him sound like a privileged douchebag, and he amended the statement. “I mean, in college, I made my own meals sometimes, and in the lab at the university, but those were all just ready-made heat-n-eat bowls.” He shrugged, trailing off. Why did she always have this effect on him? She was no different than any other tech. Okay, maybe she was cute, if you were into the whole pixie look, with her bobbed brown hair and upturned nose and the impish grin. She certainly did nice things to a set of blue Navy utility fatigues but that could have been the effect of months away from civilians. He glanced around the control room to see if any of the other technicians had noticed his embarrassment, but the only two he could see looked to be absorbed in their work. “I love a home-cooked meal,” she went on as if he hadn’t

Belief is a gritty, potent, primordial force. In the 1950s, a scientist named Dr. Curt Richter proved this when he gathered dozens of rats and dropped them into thirty-inch-deep glass cylinders filled with water. The first rat paddled on the surface for a short time, then swam to the bottom, where it looked for an escape hatch. It died within two minutes. Several others followed that same pattern. Some lasted as long as fifteen minutes, but they all gave up. Richter was surprised because rats are damn good swimmers, yet in his lab, they drowned without much of a fight. So, he tweaked the test. After he placed the next batch in their jars, Richter watched them, and right before it looked like they were about to give up, he and his techs scooped up the rats, toweled them off, and held them long enough for their heart and respiratory rates to normalize. Long enough for them to register, on a physiological scale, that they had been saved. They did this a few times before Richter placed a group of them back into those evil cylinders again to see how long they would last on their own. This time, the rats didn’t give up. They swam their natural asses off…for an average of sixty hours without any food or rest. One swam for eighty-one hours.

He says the bite marks on the torso aren’t consistent with sobek teeth. This person was already dead when they were dumped into the Istros. The sobek must have seen an easy meal and hauled it down to its lair to eat later.” She swallowed the dryness in her mouth and again looked at the body. A dryad female. Her chest cavity had been ripped open, heart and internal organs removed, and bite marks peppered— “These wounds look like the ones you got from the kristallos. And the mer’s lab figured this body was probably five days old, judging by the level of decay.” “The night we were attacked.” Bryce studied the analysis. “There was clear venom in the wounds. Tharion says he could feel it inside the corpse even before the mer did tests on it.” Most of those in the House of Many Waters could sense what flowed in someone’s body—illnesses and weaknesses and, apparently, venom. “But when they tested it …” She blew out a breath. “It negated magic.” It had to be the kristallos. Bryce cringed, reading on, “He looked into records of all unidentified bodies the mer found in the past couple years. They found two with identical wounds and this clear venom right around the time of …” She swallowed. “Around when Danika and the pack died. A dryad and a fox shifter male. Both reported missing. This month, they’ve found five with these marks and the venom. All reported missing, but a few weeks after the fact.” “So they’re people who might not have had many close friends or family,” Hunt said. “Maybe.” Bryce again studied the photograph. Made herself look at the wounds. Silence fell, interrupted only by the distant sounds of Lehabah’s show downstairs. She said quietly, “That’s not the creature that killed Danika.” Hunt ran a hand through his hair. “There might have been multiple kristallos—” “No,” she insisted, setting down the papers. “The kristallos isn’t what killed Danika.” Hunt’s brow furrowed. “You were on the scene, though. You saw it.” “I saw it in the hall, not in the apartment. Danika, the pack, and the other three recent victims were in piles.” She could barely stand to say it, to think about it again.

At the 1988 American Heart Association conference, a Black hypertension researcher said African Americans had higher hypertension rates because only those able to retain high levels of salt survived consuming the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean during the Middle Passage. “I’ve bounced this off a number of colleagues and…it seems certainly plausible,” Clarence Grim told swooning reporters. Plausibility became proof, and the slavery/hypertension thesis received the red carpet in the cardiovascular community in the 1990s. Grim did not arrive at the thesis in his research lab. It came to him as he read Roots by Alex Haley. Who needs scientific proof when a biological racial distinction can be imagined by reading fiction? By reading the Bible? —

Morgan noticed that the dog was off leash and way ahead of the guy, and she instinctively tensed up as it ran toward where they were standing. Bernadette kept her eye on the dog as well, but Palmer was oblivious, sniffing something invisible in the sand. As the dog got closer, Morgan saw that he was carrying a piece of driftwood like it was a trophy, head up at an awkward angle to compensate for the weight of it. It was a beautiful black Lab, its coat wet with salt water. She relaxed when she realized that the dog hadn’t even noticed they were there, so focused on the joy of kicking up sand that nothing else mattered. It was the essence of dog happiness distilled to a moment, and Morgan’s heart pinched when she realized it was a pleasure that Hudson couldn’t experience. Yet. Someday he’s going to be able to race down the beach with wet fur and a smile on his face, carrying a piece of driftwood with a buddy like they’re running a relay race.

When we compared the candidates’ résumés, Candidate A won hands-down. He had the “right stuff”—the adjectives about him just blew Candidate B out of the water. But that didn’t make him right for us. Had we looked for the past-tense verbs on their résumés, however, Candidate B would have won hands-down—because the résumé would have shown that he had taken the right courses in the schools of experience—including a field graduate seminar called “Scaling up process technology from the lab, through pilot scale, and then full scale.” He had wrestled with problems that the rest of us did not even know we were going to face. Or, in other words, he had the right processes to do the job.

A leaf grows by enlarging the string of cells located along a central vein; single cells on the perimeter eventually decide independently when to stop dividing. From this tip, smaller veins develop, eventually completing the network at the stem; thus the overall maturation proceeds from tip to base. Once the most daring portion of the leaf is complete, the plant puts horse before cart and begins to slide sugar back down and in, down to where it will be used to make more root, which will be used to bring up more water, which will be used to expand new leaves, which will pull back more sugar, and in this manner four hundred million years have passed.

I thought the submarine environment would be a useful analogy for the space station in a number of ways, and I especially wanted my colleagues to get an up-close look at how the Navy deals with CO2. What we learned on that trip was illuminating: the Navy has their submarines turn on their air scrubbers when the CO2 concentration rises above two millimeters of mercury, even though the scrubbers are noisy and risk giving away the submarine’s location. By comparison, the international agreement on ISS says the CO2 is acceptable up to six millimeters of mercury! The submarine’s chief engineering officer explained to us that the symptoms of high CO2 posed a threat to their work, so keeping that level low was a priority. I felt that NASA should be thinking of it the same way. When I prepared for my first flight on the ISS, I got acquainted with a new carbon dioxide removal system. The lithium hydroxide cartridges were foolproof and reliable, but that system depended on cartridges that were to be thrown away after use—not very practical, since hundreds of cartridges would be required to get through a single six-month mission. So instead we now have a device called the carbon dioxide removal assembly, or CDRA, pronounced “seedra,” and it has become the bane of my existence. There are two of them—one in the U.S. lab and one in Node 3. Each weighs about five hundred pounds and looks something like a car engine. Covered in greenish brown insulation, the Seedra is a collection of electronic boxes, sensors, heaters, valves, fans, and absorbent beds. The absorbent beds use a zeolite crystal to separate the CO2 from the air, after which the lab Seedra dumps the CO2 out into space through a vacuum valve, while the Node 3 Seedra combines oxygen drawn from the CO2 with leftover hydrogen from our oxygen-generating system in a device called Sabatier. The result is water—which we drink—and methane, which is also vented overboard.

Christina Nichol describes a conversation with a young family member who works in tech, to whom she tried to describe the unprecedentedness of the threat from climate change, unsuccessfully. “Why worry?” he replies. “Technology will take care of everything. If the Earth goes, we’ll just live in spaceships. We’ll have 3D printers to print our food. We’ll be eating lab meat. One cow will feed us all. We’ll just rearrange atoms to create water or oxygen. Elon Musk.” Elon Musk—it’s not the name of a man but a species-scale survival strategy. Nichol answers, “But I don’t want to live in a spaceship.” He looked genuinely surprised. In his line of work, he’d never met anyone who didn’t want to live in a spaceship.

Nick and Tesla went looking for Uncle Newt. They found him in the same place he’d been the last time they’d looked for him: the master bathroom on the second floor. They’d dragged him out of the shower for help with the rocket—even Tesla, bold as she could be, knew better than to try her luck with a power drill—and he must’ve jumped right back in the second he could. It was understandable, actually. His hair had still been half orange. The bathroom had what looked like a submarine airlock instead of a normal door, and unlike before it was now closed up tightly. When Nick and Tesla pressed their ears to the metal, they could dimly hear the sound of running water and Uncle Newt crooning “Winter Wonderland.” Outside, it was sunny and seventy degrees. “Gone awaaaaaaay is the something! Here to staaaaaaaay is the something! We da-da-da daaaaaa, la-la-la la laaaaaaa! Something in a something booby baaaaaaaa!” “Uncle Newt!” Tesla yelled. “Uncle Newt!” Nick yelled. “Uncle Newt!” they yelled together. “In the meadow we can something-something!” Uncle Newt sang. “And da-something something la-la-laaaaaa! We’ll have something something with the something! Until the who-who ha-has jooby jaaaaaaaa!” “Great,” Nick sighed. “He’s ignoring us now.” “I guess I can’t blame him,” said Tesla. “His hair was still half orange the last time we pulled him out of there.” “Well, I’m starving. Can we go see if the cat left us some cake?” Tesla thought it over, weighing her hunger against the chance of eating cake a cat had licked. She was very, very hungry. “Good idea,” she said.

Oh,” he said, stopping in the doorway. “I should probably warn you. Your beds might take a little getting used to.” “Why?” Tesla asked. “What’s wrong with them?” When Uncle Newt had shown them their room earlier, the beds had looked normal enough. Not that Nick and Tesla had paid much attention to them. They’d been distracted—and horrified—by the posters haphazardly stapled to the wall: Teletubbies, Elmo, Smurfs, Albert Einstein, and the periodic table. (Nick and Tesla had quickly agreed that the first three would “fall down” and “accidentally” “get ripped” at the first opportunity.) “There’s nothing wrong with your beds, and everything right!” Uncle Newt declared. “I’m telling you, kids. You haven’t slept till you’ve slept on compost!” “What?” Nick and Tesla said together. Even Uncle Newt couldn’t miss the disgust on their faces. “Maybe I’d better come up and explain,” he said. Uncle Newt pulled the comforter off Nick’s bed and revealed something that didn’t look like a bed at all. It was more like a lumpy black sleeping bag with tubes and wires poking out of one end. “Behold!” Uncle Newt said. “The biomass thermal conversion station!” Nick reluctantly gave it a test-sit. It felt like he was lowering himself onto a garbage bag stuffed with rotten old food. Because he was. “As you sleep,” Uncle Newt explained, “your body heat will help decompose food scraps pumped into the unit, which will in turn produce more heat that the convertor will turn into electricity. So, by the time you wake up in the morning, you’ll have enough power to—ta da!” Uncle Newt waved his hands at a coffeemaker sitting on the floor nearby. “Brew coffee?” Tesla said. Uncle Newt gave her a gleeful nod. “We don’t drink coffee,” said Nick. “Then you can have a hot cup of invigorating fresh-brewed water.” “Great,” Nick said. He experimented with a little bounce on his “bed.” He could feel slimy things squishing and squashing beneath his butt. “Comfy?” Uncle Newt asked. “Uhh … kind of,” Nick said. Uncle Newt beamed at his invention. “Patent pending,” he said. Uncle Newt was a gangly man with graying hair, but at that moment he looked like a five-year-old thinking about Christmas. Tesla gave the room a tentative sniff. “Shouldn’t the compost stink?” “Oh, no, no, no, no, no! Each biomass thermal conversion station is completely airtight!” Uncle Newt’s smile wavered just the teeniest bit. “In theory.” Nick opened his mouth to ask another question, but Uncle Newt didn’t seem to notice. “Well,” he said, slapping his hands together, “I guess you two should wash your teeth and brush your faces and all that. Good night!

Art soaked it in alcohol to toughen it up and draw out the water. (If he’d had the opposite problem—if the skin had been dry and stiff—he’d have soaked it in Downy fabric softener; I’m sure the makers of Downy would be pleased to know that their product makes even mummified human skin soft and fragrant.)

The Great March of Return was both a lab and showroom. The most sophisticated new weapon used against the Palestinian protesters was the “Sea of Tears,” a drone that dropped tear gas canisters on a desired area. Despite Israeli claims of accuracy, a tent full of Palestinian women and children had tear gas dropped onto them, as did groups of reporters. Israeli police started using drones that dropped tear gas grenades on protestors in the West Bank in April 2021. One month later, Israel announced that a fleet of drones would be used to track riots and protests as well as areas damaged by rockets fired from Gaza. Israel announced in 2022 that it approved the use of armed drones for “targeted killings” in the West Bank. Reportedly tested over Gaza before the major protests began in 2018, a Chinese-made drone by Da Jiang Innovations was reconfigured by Israel’s Border Force, which was working with Israeli company Aeronautics to adapt the drone to on-the-ground service requirements. “Beyond the fact that it neutralizes all danger to our forces, it allows us to reach places that we had yet to reach,” Border Police Commander Kobi Shabtai told Israel’s Channel 2 news. The immediate effectiveness of the Sea of Tears led Maf’at, the Israeli Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure, to purchase hundreds of the drones after the first night of demonstrations in Gaza. Another innovation was the “skunk water” drone, a form of liquid emitted from a water cannon that left a foul smell on clothes and body for a long time. Israeli firm Aeronautics was behind this innovation, a technique that had been already used in the West Bank and Jerusalem to deter protestors. Reports appeared in early 2020 by anti-occupation activists in the West Bank that Israeli-controlled talking drones were flying overhead and sending out a “Go Home” message to Palestinian protestors. Israeli activists were told in Hebrew not to “stand with the enemy.

Take someone like the chemist who invented the lubricant spray WD-40. The full name of WD-40 is “Water Displacement, 40th Formula.” It was called that in the chemist’s lab book because his previous thirty-nine versions of the formula failed. He learned from each one of those failures and nailed it on the fortieth try.