Deep Dives
These long essays take one idea, question or story and pursue it properly.
8 pieces so far- Editors’ pick Your Phone Finds You Using Clocks in Space The blue dot on your map depends on atomic clocks, the speed of light, a fourth satellite you didn't know you needed, and a correction from Einstein.
- New How a Rock Ended Up Running Your Phone Nearly every phone, laptop and satellite begins as a lump of quartz. Getting from one to the other is one of the strangest supply chains in the world.
- Your Fridge Is Secretly Heating Your Kitchen Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. Your fridge spends all day forcing it the other way. Here's how.
- The Sky Is Blue Because Air Is Picky The same tiny effect explains the blue of noon and the orange of evening, and why the sky on Mars does the opposite.
- Why the Monsoon Almost Always Turns Up in June A season's worth of weather arrives within a week or so of the same date every year. Here's the engine behind it, and why it partly runs on its own rain.
- Charging Your Phone Means Pushing Lithium Uphill Plug in your phone and nothing seems to happen. Inside, billions of billions of lithium ions are being forced to move house, from a comfortable home to a cramped one, and that is where the energy is stored.
- A Vaccine Is a Wanted Poster for a Germ Your immune system is a brilliant detective that starts every case days behind. A vaccine hands it the description in advance, and it never forgets a face.
- Bread Is Held Up by Billions of Tiny Fungi Every loaf is a sponge full of gas made by living things. The holes are where the gas was, and the walls between them are made of a protein net you built with your hands.
