View Online and Translate   “When the unexpected strikes, a community’s structure determines how quickly it recovers.”   Editor’s Note. This week I had planned to publish the second column in the series Critical Field Notes. However, events in Israel during the past week made it difficult to continue as intended. A personal family experience revealed something striking about how communities respond to sudden shocks, and I felt it was important to share this observation now, because it also...

View Online and Translate “Progress begins not by pouring more effort into the same structure, but by understanding the mechanism that makes it work.” The Production Machine After ending a recent video call with an African colleague, I remained seated for several minutes, not because the discussion had been dramatic, but because it brought a structural issue into sharper focus. The colleague on the other side of the screen had spent decades working in agricultural research, international...

View Online and Translate   “To imagine that our economies and social systems escape universal law is to repeat the error of placing ourselves at the center of the universe.” The most common elements in the universe, excluding noble gases, are also the most common in our bodies, and this is not a metaphor but a physical fact. With the exception of most hydrogen, which traces back to the Big Bang, nearly every atom that composes us was forged inside stars, dispersed at their deaths, and later...