New York Magazine - USA (2019-11-11)

56 newyork| november11–24, 2019

WeWillGrowOur

Clothingin Labs

BIOFABRICATION, OR GROWING FABRIC

fromlivingorganismsinlabs,hasthepotential

tochange the21st century theway nylon

changedthe20th.Oneway tomake a biofab-

ricatedtextileisbyfermentingyeast, sugar,

andwater. Youcanprogramtheyeast topro-

ducea certainproteinmolecule,extractit,and

spinit intofibersthat canbecomewoolorsilk.

ModernMeadow,perhapsthebest-known

biofabricationcompany, is workingspecifically

ona leatherreplacement,whichthecompany

hopestobringtomarket nextyear. Thatinno-

vationisparticularlyexcitingbecauseleather

doesn’t havea clearethicalalternative.Most

veganleathersubstitutesare madewithplas-

tic.Lab-grownleather,though,doesn’t require

anyanimalsandis notmadefrompetrochemi-

cals.Anotheralternativeis Myloleather,devel-

opedbyBoltThreads,whichisgrownfrom

myceliumandislike a “mat ofmushroom.”

A mushroomgrowinga shoeis thefuture.

—SARAHSPELLINGS

We Will Go

to (Robot)

War With Iran

AlbumsWillBeHoursLong

EVERWONDERWHYmost CDsholdanaver-

ageof74-to-80minutesofaudio? Like any

music-businesssaga,it is a story aboutthelove

ofsoundbutalsoaboutcompetition.In 1979,as

record companiesfinalizedplansforthesucces-

sortovinylrecordsandcassettetapes,Sonyvice-

president Norio Ohga,tasked withsetting

parametersforthediscformat, is saidtohave

used his wife’s favorite piece of music—

Beethoven’sSymphonyNo. 9 —asa ruler. The

longest recordingOhgafoundran74 minutes.

Headjustedhisplansaccordingly,whichis,in

part,howweendedupwiththe120-mm.discs

stillincirculationtoday. Really,Sonymadeits

movebecausethecompetition,Phillips,owneda

plantcapableofmakingshorter, smaller115-

mm.discs.LongerdiscspleasedOhga’s tastes

andshiftedtheplayingfieldtoSony’sadvantage;

t t is I wly

tot t ed.

TheCure’s 1989 opusDisintegrationcarried

bonustracksthevinylreleasecouldn’t.Post-

punklegendMissionofBurma’s 1988self-titled

compilationfilledeveryavailableminutewith

music. Miami bass pioneers 2 Live Crew’s con-

troversial 1989 masterpiece, As Nasty As They

Wanna Be, clocked in at 79, making De La Soul’s

61-minute 3 Feet High and Rising, released just

a month later, seem curt in comparison.

By the end of the ’90s, 70 minutes had become

the floor for popular hip-hop and R&B albums

like The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Mary J.

Blige’s Mary, Busta Rhymes’s When Disaster

Strikes, and OutKast’s Aquemini. But what

served the era’s geniuses hurt its lesser artists; for

every great long late-’90s hip-hop album, there’s

another one loaded with skits and songs that

could have been cut. Quality control is a problem

again in mainstream rap 20 years later, as musi-

cians have gotten wise to Billboard’s use of

streaming data in sales numbers, and some A-list

projects have ballooned to 90-to-100 minutes.

And they’ll only get longer as the years go on. The

Migos album Culture II is nearly twice the size of

the original Culture. Drake albums get a little

heftier each time; Views posted 20 tracks, then

More Life served 22, and Scorpion bowed out at

25. The billion streams Scorpion drew in its first
    week might seem to confirm that padding track
    lists is an exercise in gaming the charts, but as an
    eagle-eyed Rolling Stone reporter noted, 82 per-
    cent of the album’s haul can be attributed to just
    six of its songs. We may reach a point where the
    album as a unit becomes a junkyardforfansto
    scavenge for scraps, picking out songsthat
    appeal to us, and letting the rest rust.Are we
    already there? —CRAIGJENKINS

Scientists

Will Keep Talking

About Portals

(Even If They

Never Appear)

It’ll be strange, won’t it, to meet

the parallel-universe versionof

yourself? When you (and your

mirror twin) want to figure out

how you met, you’ll have

to look back to June 2019, when

scientists first announced plans

to start experimenting with

subatomic particles that could

open doors to other universes.

“It’s pretty wacky,” said lead

researcher Leah Broussard,

who is using neutron-oscillation

experiments to understand what

a parallel world may look like.

JUN 14

Taylor Swift
announces
“sustainable
fashion” collab
with Stella
McCartney.

JUN 20

Iranshoots
downa U.S.
surveillance
drone.

JUN 28

ChrisBrown
drops
extended
album
clocking in at
123 minutes.

JUN 30

Scientists

at Oak Ridge

National

Laboratory

announce

parallel-

universe

experiments.



A prototype
of a Mylo
leather bag.



A vegan
micro-silk hat.

PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF BOLT THREADS (HAT, BAG); LIAISON/GETTY IMAGES (NELSON); U.S. AIR FORCE (PLANE)