Context

It was sleek, cone-shaped, a little confusing — like something Hollywood would give a sci-fi villain for a quick getaway. It wasn’t a helicopter. And it wasn’t an airplane. It was a between the two, with a curved hull, two small wings, and eight spinning rotors lined up across its nose and tail.

Monks once hoped to turn lead into gold through alchemy. But consider the cauliflower instead. It takes just two genes to the ordinary stems, stalks and flowers of the weedy, tasteless species Brassica oleracea into a formation as marvelous as this fractal, cloudlike vegetable. This is the true alchemy, says Christophe Godin, a senior researcher…

Have you ever taken in a natural vista, say the soaring ranges of a national park, and thought: Three thousand feet of nothingness between me and the ground would really improve this. For Breannah Yeh, a 24-year-old professional slackliner, such an experience is quite a walk in the park. Ms. Yeh shares her aerial escapades…

On the beaches of Western Australia, by California’s crashing waves and in sight of Hawaii’s blue depths, “shark attacks” are slowly disappearing, at least as a phrase used by researchers and officials who have been rethinking how to describe the moments when sharks and humans meet. Last week, two Australian states drew mockery when The…

“TikTok is the biggest thing that happened to me in my career, and honestly the reason why I am where I am today,” he said. In 2018, when TikTok was officially introduced in America — it was already enormously popular elsewhere around the world — the app was lip syncs and dance challenges. But food…