Sublime

as technological ones, at an inhuman scale and speed.

sludge derived from wastewater treatment plants is processed further, then turned into high-grade topsoil and sold to farming communities. The cities of New York and Boston, for example, have operating sludge-to-fertilizer schemes. The problem is that most municipal sludge is often heavily contaminated by copper, mercury, zinc, arsenic, and chromiu

Cane toads are not just disturbingly large; from a human perspective, they’re also ugly, with bony heads and what looks like a leering expression. The trait that makes them truly “hated,” though, is that they’re toxic. When an adult is bitten or feels threatened, it releases a milky goo that swims with heart-stopping compounds. Dogs often suffer ca

Others are putting under the microscope the human excrement found in a cesspit in Herculaneum, in southern Italy, to itemise the diet of ordinary Romans as it went into – and out of – their digestive tracts. A lot of eggs and sea urchins are part of the answer.

I interviewed several of the key scientists involved in lab-based research on sending particles into the upper atmosphere to control the sun’s radiation.

Bone marrow, for example, sold for as much as $23,000 a gram (compared with $60 a gram for cocaine).