Nilou Yaar

Many pet owners have spent more time than they would like to admit standing in pet store aisles, scrolling through online reviews trying to figure out whether they are feeding their pets the right food. Every bag seems to be deliberately designed to make us question our choices. Indoor formula, sensitive stomach formula, healthy skin formula, wild salmon that seems to have lived a perfect life… the list of options is endless.

I have a terrible habit of leaving it till the very last minute to charge my phone. It finally caught up with me a few weeks ago when I was out and about in Woburn – a small city just outside Boston. My phone was about to die, there was nowhere to charge it and I was somewhere I didn’t really know. I was saved, curiously enough, by a bench – a solar powered one, with a tiny phone charger built into the side.

Wildfires in the U.S. are becoming more frequent and covering larger areas. Uranium mining, which left a toxic trail across the American West in the mid-20th century, is meanwhile being promoted again in the name of energy security. How much should we worry about wildfires in an era of expanded uranium mining? The question is far from academic. The Dragon Bravo fire in Arizona recently burned near an area where dozens of uranium claims once stood.