Elon Musk is the closest thing this world has to a real-life Tony Stark. Think about it. He builds cool cars. He builds cool rockets. He builds cool tunneling machines. He wants to fire people through pneumatic tubes. He built a ginormous battery factory in the desert, and how he's building the world's largest battery. OK, technically, Elon Musk isn't building it. Tesla is. But same difference, because Tesla is his company.

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Planet Earth is getting hotter. One of the more confusing aspects of this global trend is the persistent, undeniable discomfort of winter. Even more confusing is when that chilly weather continues into April, May, or godforbidpleasenot June. This might clear the confusion (but probably not the frustration): Those colder temperatures in the first half of the year might be due to warmer weather in the Arctic.

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Five years ago, Daniel MacArthur set out to build a massive library of human gene sequences—one of the biggest ever. The 60,706 raw sequences, collected from colleagues all over the globe, took up a petabyte of memory. It was the kind of flashy, blockbuster project that would secure MacArthur a coveted spot in one of science’s top three journals, launching his new lab at the Broad Institute into the scientific spotlight.

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When I get excited about a movie, my only way of calming down is to do a little physics. That explains why I found myself pondering Hooke's law and Young's modulus while watching a trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oh, wait. Before going further, I should provide a spoiler alert, just in case you're the type who doesn't even watch trailers. I consider trailers fair game. You have been warned. I'm not sure just what's happening in this scene, but it looks exciting.

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Add marijuana to humans, and you get some fairly predictable results: euphoria, hunger, introspection, anxiety, and a whole panoply of other effects. Also known as being high. Most of that complicated reaction is thanks to a single cellular structure known as cannabinoid receptor 1. Your body has CB1 receptors lacing the surfaces of cells in the brain, liver, lungs, fat, uterus, and sperm. And whenever your .

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In December 2016, three generations of women astronomers joined me for a phone call. Debra Fischer, Natalie Batalha, and Margaret Turnbull have dedicated their careers to comprehending planets beyond the solar system, the signs of microbial life that might be on those planets, or both of those out-there topics.

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In my family, I grew up knowing that my parents would support me no matter the mistakes I made. Bad grades, underage drinking, becoming an English major? All could be forgiven. Unless, of course, I put ketchup on a hot dog. Then I’d be out on my ass. In advance of the Fourth of July holiday, I emailed my dad to see if his opinions on hot dogs and ketchup had changed at all.

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In the late 1960s, a Pennsylvania man named Alan Litman fretted that his wife wouldn’t be safe coming home late on the mean streets of Pittsburgh. So he did what any doting husband would do—he figured out a way to fill a portable, easily deployed spray can with tear gas. Then he started marketing the product to law enforcement. Today his invention is known as Mace, a brand now synonymous with private citizens packing a ton of heat.

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Scientists and the military have often tussled over who calls the shots in space. The first astronauts were military test pilots. NASA made the space shuttle extra big to accommodate the spy satellites Pentagon planners wanted to launch. And it took 15 years for the Defense Department to release topographical maps gleaned during a classified shuttle mission so scientists could use them.

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By now, “Here Are Some Stupid Things on the Internet of Things” has become a full-on article genre. There’s even a Tumblr dedicated to the idea: “We Put a Chip in It,” it’s called. In some visions of the future, smart devices capture, quantify, and control most aspects of daily life. The oven knows you forgot about your cookies and cools them off for you at peak crisped-edginess. The fan knows you have entered the room and desire a breeze.

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