Discover 4

6 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM

Editor's Note ®

SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS

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Becky Lang

On Altered States

Just because we were in the dry

mountain West — where the

growing season is ridiculously

short — that didn’t stop my

parents from building a huge

garden. Rows of zucchini, peas,

potatoes, broccoli and (to my and

my brother’s dismay) spaghetti

squash filled nearly half the field

in front of the house. A mass

of raspberry bushes, dripping

with fruit, meant we’d have jam

for months to come.

It was the mid-1970s, and meat

and dairy was expensive, so that

garden was their solution for

affordable food. They had altered

their environment.

You might say alterations —

whether it’s the environment,

materials or the mind — is a

theme in this issue.

Associate Editor Eric Betz takes us to Florida, where farmers

and scientists are exploring the use of gene editing to save our

orange crops. What’s learned in labs there and in California

could help agriculture growth around the world.

Contributing editor Jonathon Keats visits with materials

scientists in Yoel Fink’s lab, watching as they spin tiny electronic

properties and sensors into fibers and textiles — ready to

connect with everyday technology.

And we excerpt a new book by Lauren Slater, in which

she traces the discovery by scientists of what makes certain

mushrooms so magical, and their potential to help patients face

their fear of death.

Altering our outlook and our environments is part of being

human. What remains is how we transform them, and what the

harvest of that transformation brings to our lives.

D