Lab-grown diamonds

Words by Javid Lakha

Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and vastly cheaper than mined diamonds. Beating nature took decades of hard graft and millions of pounds of pressure.

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Lab diamonds

Doom scrolling

Words by Justin Germain

We may be close to rediscovering thousands of texts that had been lost for millennia. Their contents may reshape how we understand the Ancient World.

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Treasure hunting

Libraries of matter

Words by Virginia Postrel

Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene aerogel. And in some materials libraries you can cut, cast, drill, sand, scrape, and sculpt too.

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Materials