It is here that Nasa scientists, in partnership with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, are attempting to explore and probe the limits of life on Earth. Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, ran the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, where Ruth prepared all of the food for the inn’s guests. She had developed quite a reputation for her cooking, but in 1930, while preparing a batch of Chocolate Butter Drop Do cookies, Ruth realized she was out of baker’s chocolate. The problem surfaced while Spirit was preparing to resume analysis of its first rock, just a few yards from where it landed. Over the past 10 years, however, analysis of data collected by the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter “definitively” proved ice exists on the moon. A holy trifecta of capitalist superheroes-Musk, Branson, Bezos-has inspired the public with dreams of space and adventure the way NASA used to, and now rarely does. Aura, managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is part of NASA’s first series of Earth Observing System satellites.

In the spring of 1967, the flight originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee was officially designated Apollo 1 for the history books. Throughout his career, the Harvard- and Columbia-educated scientist has repackaged complex theories and universal mysteries into essays, presentations and books aimed at laypeople. Additionally, JPL’s Europa Clipper mission launched in 2024 to study Jupiter’s moon Europa, believed to harbor a subsurface ocean. Launched on January 31, 1958, Explorer 1, officially Satellite 1958 Alpha, became the U.S.’s first Earth satellite. One of the most widely used antibiotics, penicillin was first developed by Scottish researcher Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. The careless type, Fleming departed for a two-week vacation having left out a petri dish containing staphylococcus. The idea of robots and other forms of rogue technology taking over the planet is a well-worn one in literature, television and film. So for the third batch, in an attempt to further irritate the diner, Crum made fries that were so thin they couldn’t be eaten with a fork, and over salted them for good measure.

Plants not only take in carbon dioxide and return oxygen, but they are exceptionally good at capturing harmful toxins from the air. Today the Popsicle brand is owned by the Good Humor division of Unilever. Invented by 11-year-old Frank Epperson in 1905, the original popsicle came to be when he forgot a powder-flavored soda water mixture on the porch one evening with a stir stick in it. One day, Alfred Nobel (who would later establish the prestigious Nobel Prize award) was working with the substance when a vial fell to the floor and smashed. A beloved children’s toy to this day, Play-Doh was initially invented as a cleaning product. But one day, a fellow engineer at 3M had an idea. That’s why researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia have developed a system that can help with one slice of drone troubleshooting: enabling small UAVs to determine on their own when they’re not working properly, and then find a safe place to land. These days, one of the most ominous depictions of the power of robot technology is a YouTube video of a swarm of 20 small drones humming along in unison, dipping through windows, changing formations and even zipping around in a synchronized figure-eight pattern.

In terms of development, however, the process can take years; the idea of the automatic tilt in Cosm, for instance, began when Studio 7.5 began working on its previous product, the Mirra chair – but the tilt technology wasn’t ready yet. Her job during World War II was a temporary position, but thanks in part to a new executive order prohibiting discrimination in the defense industry, she was hired on permanently because the laboratory had a wealth of data to process. Frameworks provide a basis on which you can build your program and help create an atmosphere of order in the event that the code of your application seems to be lacking any sense of structure. Drinkable water is then filtered to remove microbes and can be warmed or chilled through various heat exchangers depending upon the use (food preparation, consumption, personal hygiene). But after the War, natural gas became a far more common heat source, leaving Noah and Joseph McVicker’s invention without a customer base and the company, Kutol’s Products, on the brink of brankruptcy. But when Howard Florey, Norman Heatley and Andrew Moyer discovered a comparable type of mold that grew far more rapidly, they were able to begin the experiments that have since saved innumerable lives.