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Rattle the Experts
By MADELINE BODIN
Amateurs found it difficult to convince experts New England’s rattlesnakes were dying.
Boxing and God in Shantou
By BRENT CRANE
A professor of the divine explicates the sweet science in a Chinese city left behind.
Music of the Night
By RACHEL HELLER ZAIMONT
An obscure instrument evokes awe and terror onscreen and off.
Storm Warning
By CHRIS KRUPIARZ
From dangerous flights to remotely operated drones, typhoon chasers have come a long way.
Brittle Memories
By JESSICA L.H. DOYLE
A well-traveled set of bedroom furniture yields an invaluable secret a half-century old.
Take a Leek, Any Size
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
Tumescent vegetables are big business and spur on healthy competition.
New Life in a Dying Profession
By KRISTEN BAHLER
Young morticians bring humor, grief, and humanity to death.
Ghosts of the Estate Sale
By THERESE ONEILL
What happens when you claim memories that aren’t your own?
Fall from GRACE
By JENNIFER MACK
Two satellites chase each other eternally, but will soon plunge to the ground they so closely monitor.
The Suit Fits
By THERESA EVERLINE
For the snappily dressed space person who needs an outfit on the go.
Retweeting New Zealand
By NAOMI ARNOLD
The land of kiwis and Kiwis has a new plan to eradicate invasive animals and bring back birdsong.
Hackerspace in the Garden of Eden
By CELESTE LECOMPTE
A dismantled prison in Iraq births a new creative effort.
Unicorn Chaser
By CHRISTA MRGAN
Her father was a maker before that name existed, but he couldn’t fix himself.
Accompanied Miner
By CHRIS HIGGINS
An exhibit in a coal mine dives deep into the history of working conditions.
Still Life with James T. Kirk
By DAVID J. LOEHR
A Christmas present nearly became an exhibit in the author’s childhood.
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
Open archives, a new app, single-issue sales, and our regular issue.
It’s Easy Being Green
By LEE VAN DER VOO
A rural county finds a surprisingly easy economic path to energy sufficiency and carbon offsets.
Dot Scot or Not?
By CAROLYN ROBERTS
A new top-level domain sparks a debate in advance of the independence vote.
Breaking and Entering
By JUSTINE ICKES
A father traces castles in the sawdust of others’ constructions.
Child’s Play
By AMY WESTERVELT
Games that simulate reality bring home humanity’s impact on nature for kids.
The Blue Train
By THERESA EVERLINE
The author’s father developed aerial photos in WWII, but little history of it persists.
Listen Carefully
By APRIL KILCREASE
An auteur of sound has spent decades perfecting his idiosyncratic performance space.
A Bicycle Built for 18
By MATTHEW AMSTER-BURTON
Elly Blue uses Kickstarter as a publishing engine for advocacy.
The Neverending Story
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
Four hundred people gather in London to talk of boring things.
Herd around the Net
By RENEE BRINCKS
The online auction block is transforming traditional farm sales.
Works in Progress
By CELESTE LECOMPTE
The New Deal’s infrastructure and arts program left a legacy that’s being rediscovered.
Three Strikes, You Shout
By PHILIP MICHAELS
Moneyball documented a change in baseball, but not everyone has done their homework.
Own the Past
By JULIE SCHWIETERT COLLAZO
Mexico is determined to convert its history into digital form on its own terms.
Mad Scientist Club
By TATE WILLIAMS
In an otherwise unremarkable room at MIT, the published history of science fiction overflows.
Captive Audience
By THERESA EVERLINE
The first penitentiary, now a museum, provokes a discourse about prisons.
Curly with a Fringe on Top
By GABE BULLARD
A man’s elaborately titled stark photos of cheese curls gain a following.
Data Harvesting
By NANCY GOHRING
Farmers consider — and worry about — large-scale cloud-based data collection.
Wear and Tear
By AMY WESTERVELT
People are turning consumer tech into low-cost tools for medical measurement.
String Theory
By MATTHEW AMSTER-BURTON
A bit of twine transformed between two hands is an icebreaker that transcends cultures and languages.
Scents and Sensibility
By APRIL KILCREASE
A hearty band of foragers attempts to bring back the richness of nature to the oils with which we anoint ourselves.
Tanks for Everything
By LEE VAN DER VOO
The future of sustenance farming and beyond may lie in aquaponics.
Small Instruction Set
By CIARA BYRNE
CoderDojo promotes self-directed learning and local mentors to help kids teach themselves to program.
Spinning Round and Round
By KENDRA PIERRE-LOUIS
A Danish traveler seeks to visit every country — because he can.
My Hazelnut Heart
By JUSTINE ICKES
With only a few words of her in-laws’ language, she knows the right things to say.
Eggs Terminate
By JEN A. MILLER
A faster, egg-free flu vaccine becomes available to those with allergies, including our writer.
Going to Seed
By RENEE BRINCKS
Heirloom seeds link past and present while preserving genetic diversity.
How to Move a Wood Bison
By JENNA SCHNUER
The chutes, ladders, and waiting games behind a plan to restore a giant mammal to Alaska.
Mourning by Stone and Fountain
By JESSICA L.H. DOYLE
Can memorials to crime victims help public and private healing in the same space?
To Bee or Not To Bee
By MADELINE BODIN
A bumblebee species disappears from Vermont. Is it gone forever?
Race to the Bottom
By JAKE ROSSEN
A long dash to a more comfortable way to take pictures inside the colon.
From Shelves to Snowflakes
By ALEX DUNER
Libraries shift from consumption into creation with makerspaces.
Radium Hound
By THERESA EVERLINE
A responsible dealer of a radioactive element once pushed as a quack cure tried to keep the genie in the bottle.
Connect the Dots
By JULIE SCHWIETERT COLLAZO
A rural technologist re-envisions employment in the hinterlands.
The Slow Selfie
By APRIL KILCREASE
An antique method of making photographic prints reveals more than meets the eye.
Balancing without a Net
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
For the voiceless, social media provides a support network — and a bullhorn.
To Have and Not Hold
By COLLEEN HUBBARD
A hippie, an anarchist, and a start-up define freeness and sharing in a time of excess.
Dirty R&B
By LEAH REICH
A truly filthy, wonderful genre of blues fails to get the attention it deserves.
Blurred Visionnaire
By GABE BULLARD
Is one of the most successful pen projects on Kickstarter a bulk order from China?
On the Road with New Space
By CHRIS KRUPIARZ
A race to a late-night launch of a new kind of mission.
New Disruptors 58 and 59
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
A look at our Kickstarter campaign; turtles teach programming.
New Disruptors 56 and 57
By THE EDITOR
Podcast episodes about a women-oriented makerspace and printing photos under glass.
Ain’t What It Used To Be
By JEN A. MILLER
Relics of our own lives can bring regret or warm our hearts.
For Whom the Kale Tolls
By ROSIE J. SPINKS
Here’s a radical idea: let’s talk about gentrification without saying the word hipster.
I’ll Fry Anything Once
By MATTHEW AMSTER-BURTON
Tempura restaurants will unpretentiously dip anything in oil.
Transit-Story Housing
By COLLEEN HUBBARD
Carville was San Francisco’s streetcar neighborhood, where artists, lady bicyclists, and other bohemians hung out.
The Most Boring Machine
By MARK HARRIS
A tunnel-making behemoth has already chewed up and spat out one politician.
New Disruptors 54 and 55
By THE EDITOR
Podcast episodes about crowdfunding T-shirts and the Boing Boing editors interviewed.
Cry Wolf
By MARY CATHERINE O'CONNOR
Humanity perfects the art of mimicking nature for science and hunting.
Bit by Bit
By RICHARD MOSS
A filmmaker spends excruciating years on a pixellated animated film to bring it to fruition.
Scotched
By MICHAEL E. COHEN
Fair thoughts and happy hours did not attend upon an early enhanced-book adaptation of Macbeth.
Multi-Player Mode
By BILL LASCHER
Spurred by an intensive competition, Portlanders program games in their spare time.
New Disruptors 52 and 53
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
Podcast episodes about App Camp for Girls and our one-year show anniversary.
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
The Web, the ultimate finish line, our crowdfunded book, and this week’s stories.
The Magazine: The Book
By BRITTANY SHOOT
You may have heard we’re making a book, and that we need your help to bring it into being.
Good to the Last Drop
By JEN A. MILLER
Caffeine has a potential role in marathon deaths by heart attack.
Bug Testing
By DAVID ERIK NELSON
Turning bugs into remote-controlled cyborgs teaches us as much about ourselves as about them.
Existence Is Tricky
By RUSTY FOSTER
There is no bottom to the hole you fall into when trying to find the true nature of things.
Kill Screen
By LORA SHINN
Will video-game museums and preservationists run out of extra guys or reach the boss level?
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
Hold us closer! Plus this week’s issue, short stories, and a letter.
Sint’s Abilities
By LIANNE BERGERON
A Canadian embraces a Dutch holiday tradition while keeping her own.
The Cervix Industry
By ALEXANDRA DUNCAN
There’s a difference between believing in something and being willing to take your pants off for it.
Some of Their Parts
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
Legs, hands, lips, feet, and more form an anonymous backbone of the modeling industry.
Works in Progress
By CELESTE LECOMPTE
The New Deal’s infrastructure and arts program left a legacy that’s being rediscovered.
Three Strikes, You Shout
By PHILIP MICHAELS
Moneyball documented a change in baseball, but not everyone has done their homework.
My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Michigan
By JASON SNELL
Manti Te’o wasn’t necessarily naive, misguided, or a hoaxer.
Nature Adores a Vacuum
By JOE RAY
A lone geek brings sous vide, a three-star chef’s technique, into affordable reach of the home cook.
Impermanent Games
By RICHARD MOSS
Australia’s and New Zealand’s early video-game history may already be lost.
Magnetic Fields
By MARY CATHERINE O'CONNOR
Metal-detecting enthusiasts discover buried treasure and community.
Just Desert
By COLLEEN HUBBARD
Africa, a devil, and Burning Man meet in Eastern Europe’s little desert.
Editor’s Note
By THE EDITOR
Turn off the transporter; the space party is over. Birth, death, hacktivism, and pens. Plus, your letters.
Hacked Off
By ROSIE J. SPINKS
The hacker-activist community seems to leave no safe place for women. Can it grow up?
Bumbling Idiots
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
It takes the power of a hive mind to save bees from extinction.
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
By JOE RAY
Unglamorous software may help restaurants keep patrons happy and returning.
The Everending Story
By KEVIN PURDY
The greatest video game sequel never authorized remains incomplete.
Beard and Bearder
By ART ALLEN
Scores of hirsute men descend on Minneapolis to compare follicular feats.
Terminal Curiosity
By BRITTANY SHOOT
The country’s highest-visibility museums cater to an itinerant audience.
Through a Glass Darkly
By NATE BERG
The Museum of Jurassic Technology views reality through a special lens.
A Beacon of Hope
By JOHN PATRICK PULLEN
A dying city glows with optimism over its plan for a giant lava lamp.
Everybody Knows You’re a Dog
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
After 20 years, a cartoon’s punch line has become ironic.
Flaws and All
By MANJULA MARTIN
John Vanderslice adores digital technology — except when it comes to audio.
Carriage Return
By RICHARD MOSS
In Melbourne, Australia, a man who can repair almost any typewriter nears retirement.
Inkheart
By NANCY GOHRING
Letterpress printing has been revived as a craft after its commercial death.
Wood Stock
By JACQUI CHENG
A once-obscure bit of printing history on the shores of Lake Michigan finds rekindled interest.
Weight for It
By JOE RAY
Digital scales may let home cooks have the precision of chefs — and less mess.
A Bicycle Built for Six
By LIANNE BERGERON
The Netherlands has elevated bikes far above cars in the transportation hierarchy.
Well Positioned
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
On YouTube, Laci Green cheerfully dispenses sex advice grounded in research.
Restoration Hardware
By GABE BULLARD
Analog tech is kept alive by aging experts and an abundance of cannibalized parts.
Staying Power
By JOHN MOLTZ
Branded as an anxiety-relieving product, Dog 1.0 has room for improvement.
Full Scale
By NATHAN MEUNIER
It takes an Ewok village of Star Wars fans to build a Millennium Falcon.
Face It: It’s Over
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
Facebook means never having to say goodbye, even when you should.
An Inconvenient Tooth
By ALISON HALLETT
Why does Portland, a city with a well-educated citizenry, revel in rejecting fluoridation?
The iPhone Is My Midwife
By BEN BAJARIN
A hobby farmer finds the Web provides, even when he’s in the thick of things.
Cunning Old Fox
By SANDRA ALLEN
Americans start to appreciate wine made from native grapes in Middle America.
Meet the Meat
By COLLEEN HUBBARD
Have a fine meal of beef and context at California’s largest feedlot.
A Ribbon Runs Through It
By ERIN MCKEAN
When one sews one’s own clothes, the questions have a common thread.
Spot Pricing
By MATTHEW AMSTER-BURTON
Demand-based adjustment of metered parking improves a city’s flow.
Red Light, Green Light
By MARK HARRIS
Using cameras to capture red-light infractions may increase accidents.
Phish Scales
By ROHIN DHAR
The band created a massive empire by building an audience one fan at a time.
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
They blinded us without science; also, love, links, and laps; and dark dungeons.
Mechanically Attached
By MORGEN JAHNKE
A coin-operated museum proves common ground between a litterateur and a geek.
Lifting One’s Spirits
By NANCY GOHRING
A sometimes homely exterior surrounds a highly functional, inexpensive, and versatile still.
Second Wind
By CHRIS HIGGINS
A running program designed for beginners takes people far beyond 5,000 meters.
Give It Your Best Shot
By SAUL HYMES
A better narrative is required to counter the anti-vaccine movement’s fairy tales.
Choose Your Character
By BRIANNA WU
Faced with change, an all-female indie dev team evolves to a higher form.
Pinball Wizards
By BRITTANY SHOOT
Keeping machines in play, one location scout and data field at a time.
Ground Control, Part 2
By ELI SANDERS
Opinions remain in conflict on the many possible private, public, and police uses of drones.
Unbound Pages
By JOHN D. BERRY
Text has leaped free of physical constraints, but designers still trail.
Locked Stacks
By ROSIE J. SPINKS
New legislation may thaw the British Library’s digitization effort, but it brings its own set of risks.
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
The surveillance state expands to encompass the view from the air and individual peeping.
Instant Memories
By MAARTEN MUNS
The Impossible Project has earned its name by re-inventing instant film for Polaroid cameras.
Ain’t No Reason
By LEX FRIEDMAN
A mother tongue spoken by millions of Americans still gets no respect.
Names of the Games
By ADAM ROTHSTEIN
The inhabitants of two lands labor endlessly, beset by bandits and corruption, for our pleasure.
Editor’s Note
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
Web subscriptions, a porous paywall, and enabling letters to the editors.
Aladdin’s New Caves
By CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
Pawnbrokers, back in fashion in the UK, have taken a decided turn away from seedy.
What Remains Behind
By ELISABETH EAVES
Determined forensics work continues to bring American soldiers home from Laos and beyond.
Heavy Breathing
By CHRIS HIGGINS
The terror of waking not breathing, over and over again, can be assuaged with a bit of hardware.
Game Gulf
By MOHAMMED TAHER
Arabic gaming remained on pause for nearly two decades due to a popular platform’s demise — and war.
Aged White Dog
By GABE BULLARD
The bourbon boom faces literal and figurative dilution in the midst of a massive increase in demand.
Ground Control
By ROBERT PALMER
As he fell to snag the softball as it bounced, something nearly tore his life apart.
Siri, Am I in a Paper Bag?
By LEX FRIEDMAN
Turn right now. Rerouting. Turn left now. Rerouting. Rerouting.
Light Motif
By DAVID ERIK NELSON
A pinhole lens cap finally brings infinite focus and undistorted images to digital cameras.
His Bright Materials
By DANIEL RUTTER
Seemingly new technology has deep roots in the past: electroluminescent materials and electrets.
Re-Enabled
By STEVEN AQUINO
iOS’s impact on those with impairments isn’t just a marketing slide; it’s profound.
The Ties That Band
By NATHAN BARHAM
A marching band switches its policy on glowing screens to keep it moving to the right beat.
Fits You to a T
By MARK SIEGAL
That shirt was out of character for you, and everyone kids you about it.
Bit Bucket
By MARK DONOHOE
A betrayal at the end of Bill’s life led to a second death as his digital self was scattered to the four winds.
Get It in Gear
By DAN MOREN
No justification remains for driving a stick shift, except the subtle pleasures of mechanical mind-melding.
Sink Your Teeth In
By JULIO OJEDA-ZAPATA
Nerdy pleasures deserve to be shared, especially when sweet or savory.
And Read All Over
By JAMELLE BOUIE
An implicit network, not overt racism, keeps tech writing dominated by white men.
Batteries Included
By MICHELE CATALANO
The youngest victims of Hurricane Sandy received Christmas cheer from two friends coasts apart.
The Professionalization of Pot
By ALISON HALLETT
Former tokers may be more baffled by maryjane’s many varieties than befuddled by higher potency.
Genetic Shoelaces Told My Demise
By MARK HARRIS
A protective structure at the end of chromosomes may be key to predicting — and changing — our lifespan.
Master of Band Administration
By CHRIS BREEN
Running a gigging band prepares you for a real life in business.
Majestic Espresso
By MARCO TABINI
When Italians say coffee, they mean espresso. There is no other kind.
Letterdepressed
By JOSH CENTERS
Strategies for the popular Letterpress app can counter the heartbreak of tile placement.
The Sound of Silence
By GLENN FLEISHMAN
America’s archive of audio recordings remains quietly out of range of hearing.
One Computer Worked Better
By BEN BROOKS
A single machine is more efficient than syncing between two.
Advertising On Demand
By WATTS MARTIN
How much would you pay not to have a fondue fork stuck in your ear?
Parenting Technology
By STEPHEN HACKETT
Families are engulfed in technology, but it can become deeply personal.
The Problem with Self-Publishing
By HARRY MARKS
The importance of the publishing industry’s established feedback loops.
Falling From The Friendly Skies
By DANIEL RUTTER
How did Felix Baumgartner break the sound barrier by falling?
Fireballed
By GUY ENGLISH
It’s not just “Linkblogs” that have become popular: it’s the Fireball Format.
Baseball Misfits
By JASON SNELL
There’s a weird schism between geeks who love sports and those who don’t.