I grew up in a hidden city. Not a forgotten city, or a faraway city—a hidden city. My hometown, Nizhny Novgorod, lies east of Moscow along the Volga River. It was a center of international trade before the Russian Revolution but was bombed by the Nazis during World War II; to preserve crucial industries housed there, the Soviet authorities effectively closed it off from the world after the war. It didn’t exist on many Soviet maps, and foreigners were not allowed to visit.

Mangrove rivulus fish hate enforced water aerobics. Despite her best efforts, Giulia Rossi, a biologist who recently received her doctorate from the University of Guelph, cannot coax the fish to swim against a current in a laboratory tank. “They refuse to exercise in water,” she told me. “They just let themselves hit the back mesh.”When plucked out of water, however, the stubborn swimmers quickly whip themselves into shape.

Every week, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide to living through climate change, in your inbox.You wouldn’t know it today, but the silicon photovoltaic solar cell—the standard, black-and-copper solar panel you can find on suburban rooftops and solar farms—was born and raised in America.The technology was invented here.

John Marshall is America’s most important jurist. Biographers are universally laudatory of the “Great Chief Justice.” A recent documentary about him (in which I am interviewed) is subtitled The Man Who Made the Supreme Court.This icon of jurisprudence is central to America’s constitutional development. For nearly three and a half decades, longer than any other chief justice, he led the Court and shaped constitutional law.