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The Secret History of The Rape Kit

Pagan Kennedy, author of Inventology, the 2016 book on inventions that bring about social change, and the people behind them, became fascinated by what she describes as a “a piece of technology designed to hold men accountable for brutalizing women.” So, who invented the standardized...

MS Blues

On the last day of school, no matter which city we lived in, we would be on the evening train to Madurai. The overnight train journey was always fun--but our annual destination--we were a little less excited about that. Madurai was my father’s hometown and...

The mRNA Nobelist

One day in 1997, University of Pennsylvania molecular biologist Katalin (Kati) Karikó met a new hire at the photocopier who would change the trajectory of her research forever. At 42, the scientist had made little headway with her big idea that mRNA—the ephemeral molecule that...

Drunk!

A good book can take you to some unexpected places. The whiskey room at a giant tech company furnished with colorful beanbags and foosball tables is one. When coders at Google hit a creative wall, they can apparently, pop into this room on campus for...

Cat in the Agraharam

The wealth of contemporary Tamil literature has always been just out of reach for readers like me who speak the mother tongue well enough but tend to stumble over the printed word. But you don't need Tamil roots to appreciate this new collection of translated...

The Hospital Rooftop Farm

One evening during this summer of record high temperatures I went on a free public tour of a large farm in the heart of our fair city. To reach this destination, I took the orange freight elevator three stories up at the power plant...