When the astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams launched to the International Space Station on June 5, they flew on a Boeing spacecraft and wore the company’s bright-blue spacesuits. On the way home, eight months after their scheduled return, they will likely ride in a SpaceX vehicle, dressed in sleek white suits designed with the aesthetic sensibilities of that company’s CEO and chief engineer in mind. Elon Musk to the rescue.

“Okay, we have to move fast,” one of Pete Buttigieg’s aides told me as the discoursing dynamo was finishing another cable interview on the last day of the Democratic National Convention.
Buttigieg stepped off an MSNBC set and onto the United Center floor. “I’m here to give you some much-needed attention,” I told him. By “much-needed,” I was of course being sarcastic: Buttigieg has been a rather relentless media presence in recent weeks, especially this past one in Chicago.

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When selecting a new book, it can be comforting to return to what’s familiar: the genres you know you love, the authors whose perspectives you share. But sometimes, the best books are the ones that challenge rather than confirm your expectations.

Frankie met Lucia in that summer of tombstoners and storms, when the tomato plants got blight and the bean plants fruited early. She lived in a small cluster of houses just north of Lulworth, where the news consisted only of tomato plants getting blight and bean plants fruiting early. She was sitting in the dirt tunnel beneath the beans, which by now had shriveled in the sun like exhumed fingers, when she called up Beach Ices and it all began.

Nearly 50 years ago, my parents dropped me off for my freshman year of college, beginning my life in the world of higher education. Over the decades, I’ve been an undergraduate, a graduate student, a professor, an administrator, and a parent of three college students.
I’ve seen students struggle and thrive. I’ve watched young men and women blossom into world-class scholars and take their education in directions I never could have anticipated.

In the spring of 2023, not long after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched his chaotic presidential campaign, I asked him a straightforward question. What do you see as more harmful to America: another term of Joe Biden, or Donald Trump returning to power? “I can’t answer that,” Kennedy replied.
This morning, Kennedy finally stopped being cagey. He announced that he was suspending his campaign and throwing his support to Trump.

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With the Democratic National Convention now behind Kamala Harris, the vice president is officially the Democratic presidential nominee—but now some are asking how her campaign can translate the momentum from recent weeks into winning over voters in key swing states.

This article was originally published by Undark Magazine.
In 2019, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense released a call for research projects to help the military deal with the copious amount of plastic waste generated when troops are sent to work in remote locations or disaster zones. The agency wanted a system that could convert food wrappers and water bottles, among other things, into usable products, such as fuel and rations.