Peacock Feathers Can Make Laser Beams (Ars Technica)
by Jennifer Ouellette
Peacock feathers use crystal structures to produce brilliant colors. Now scientists have found that, with a little fiddling, the feathers can be adjusted to turn flashes of light into laser beams.

Aliens and Us (Noema Magazine)
by Michael L. Wong
There’s only one place in the universe where we know life exists, so thinking about potential alien life means starting with our own planet. But thought experiments about the lives of aliens can also tell us something about potential trajectories for intelligent life on Earth.

A World War and the World It Shaped (Big Think)
by Tim Brinkhof
As World War I fades out of living memory, a look back shows how it transformed the world in political, cultural, and technological ways.

Bringing Back an Ancestral Game (Smithsonian Magazine)
by Robin Catalano
Pok-ta-pok is the world’s oldest team ballgame, played in Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spanish and afterward in secret. Now, some are calling for it to become the national sport of Belize.

Turning Coral into Bone (Nautilus)
by Carly Anne York
Bones are complicated, living things capable of healing themselves, but when a piece is missing it’s hard to replace. A group of scientists with different kinds of knowledge found a solution.

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