Volume 18 Issue 9
Messiah Hunt
I had just removed my shoes in the hot sun outside the Dome of the Rock when an elderly man emerged from the shaded interior and shook his head with practiced firmness. “No. Muslims only.” I’d been profiled—religiously, if not racially—but my first...
Pili Power
Geobacter sulfurrenducens are bacteria that live in colonies found under the ground, where there’s no oxygen. Instead of respiring by breathing, they have to get rid of electrons, so they pass them along to iron or magnesium atoms in the...
Hard-Boiled Hollywood
I’m generally not thrilled when friends push books on me. “You have to read this. Here, take my copy,” they’ll say, and then try to extract progress reports the next five times I talk to them. But when someone slipped me John Gilmore’s Laid Bare some...