CURRENT ISSUE
September 2012
Features
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Keep It Simple
From a computer so revolutionary it needed only one button, to a wardrobe filled with a single signature sweater, Steve Jobs’ unwavering creative discipline chartered a new era in American design
"Pattern and Snarl"
A new poem by Amit Majmudar
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Better Living Through Imitation
Biomimicry engineers are finding the designs of the future in the greatest field laboratory of the past—the natural world
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China's Most Dangerous Man
Arrested and harassed by the Chinese government artist Ai Weiwei makes daring works unlike anything the world has ever seen. His first U.S. retrospective opens in Washington this month at the Hirshhorn
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Overnight Sensation
How an obscure symbol leapt from the typewriter key to fame
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Extreme Pogo
The classic jumping toy was essentially unchanged for 80 years—until three crazy inventors created powerful new gravity-defying machines that can leap over (small) buildings in a single bound
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National Treasure: Pretty in Pink
The plastic flamingo has ascended from American kitsch to style icon
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Koolhaas Country
The world's most controversial architect reveals his next project—reinventing the countryside
Departments
From the Castle
Secretary Clough has the skull of naturalist Robert Kennicott in his office to remind him of the remarkable scientists who work for the Smithsonian
Nowhere Man
Invisible—but refusing to disappear
How She Overcame
Aung San Suu Kyi talks about the secret weapon in her decades of struggle against Burma’s military dictators—the power of Buddhism
Planet Fever
Why hundreds of recently discovered planets are a boon to science—and philosophy
The Martin Chronicles
England’s most famous living novelist has moved to America—and tilted the literary world
Books
A new history blows the cover on British spies in World War II. Plus: wild Antarctica, planting a forest and a paean to probability
This Just Out
A new biography explores the story of the famous diva who once owned the Hope Diamond
Fast Forward
The hub of Richard Branson's plans for Virgin Galactic, where tourists and scientists alike take off for the great beyond