Health Trotter

September 23, 2021 at 04:30PM Richard Powers’ 2018 novel The Overstory , which won that year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, followed decades of the MacArthur Fellow’s work investigating the intersections of culture, the environment, science and technology. His most recent book, Bewilderment , released Tuesday, again delves into the impact of science on human life. Bewilderment by Richard Powers In Bewilderment , something of a contemporary take on the Flowers for Algernon story, Powers writes of a neurodivergent, middle-school-aged child named Robin who undergoes an experiment involving decoded neurofeedback (a cutting-edge neuroscience technique in real life). The experiment improves Robin’s emotional quotient—at least at first. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Powers spoke to TIME ahead of the book’s release. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. TIME: Bewilderment clearly has a lot to say about current and ongoing events. Was it your intention t...

September 13, 2021 at 04:30PM One of the perks of going out on a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker in the Arctic is something called Ice Liberty. Ports are few and far between when you’re north of the Arctic Circle, so instead of shore leave, Coastguardsmen and women will locate a large slab of floating ice, cordon off a safe area, put up a watch for polar bears, and throw a football around. It’s cold, but worth it, says electrician master chief Mark Hulen, who, over the past two decades, has gone out for Ice Liberty on every one of his last six Arctic missions with the Coast Guard. But this year, as the Coast Guard cutter Healy —one of two ice breakers in the U.S. Fleet—traversed the Arctic from Seattle to Baltimore via the Northwest Passage, Ice Liberty wasn’t an option. “We struggled with finding a good enough piece of ice to stand on,” he says. “Nothing was thick enough.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A small disappointment for Hulen and his crewmates is a warning sign of th...

September 07, 2021 at 04:30PM Scattered three miles deep along the floor of the central Pacific are trillions of black, misshapen nuggets that may just be the solution to an impending energy crisis. Similar in size and appearance to partially burned charcoal briquettes, the nuggets are called polymetallic nodules, and are an amalgamation of nickel, cobalt, manganese and other rare earth metals, formed through a complex biochemical process in which shark teeth and fish bones are encased by minerals accreted out of ocean waters over millions of years. Marine biologists say they are part of one of the least-understood environments on earth, holding, if not the secret to life on this planet, at least something equally fundamental to the health of its oceans. Gerard Barron, the Australian CEO of seabed-mining company the Metals Company , calls them something else: “a battery in a rock,” and “the easiest way to solve climate change.” The nodules, which are strewn across the 4.5 mil...