July 2019, ScientificAmerican.com 1July 2019VOLUME 321, NUMBER 1Photograph by Chris Gunn
ON THE COVER
The frenzied buzzing of networks scattered across the brain
somehow produces our ability to sense, think and act. Network
neuroscientists are now using sophisticated mathematical tools to
model the ungraspable complexity by which the activa tion of the
brain’s 100 trillion connections produces what we call the mind.
Illustration by Mark Ross Studios.NEUROSCIENCE
26 How Matter Becomes Mind
The new discipline of network neuroscience
yields a picture of how mental activity arises
from interactions among different brain areas.
By Max Bertolero and Danielle S. Bassett
B I O L O G Y
34 The Invulnerable Cell
Biologists are building an organism that can
shrug off any virus on the planet. Impervious
human cells may be next. By Rowan Jacobsen
CONSERVATION
42 Broken Promises
Mining giant Rio Tinto made a high-profile
pledge to improve the ecology of its ilmenite
sites in Madagascar. Then its bottom line
began to suffer. By Rowan Moore Gerety
SPECIAL REPORT
50 TH ANNIVERSARy
OF APOLLO 11
50 ONE SMALL STEP BACK IN TIME
How humans achieved the impossible and
the case for doing it again. By Clara Moskowitz
56 MAPPING THE MISSION
Modern satellite imagery and 3-D modeling
provide a dramatic new view of how the first moon
landing really happened.
Text and graphics by Edward Bell
60 LUNAR LAND GRAB
The legally dubious race to claim terrain on the
moon. By Adam Mann
66 MISSIONS TO THE MOON
All 122 attempts, visualized. Graphic by Set Reset
68 ORIGIN STORY
A new class of astronomical object may help solve
the lingering mysteries of the moon’s formation.
By Simon J. Lock and Sarah T. Stewart
74 APOLLO’S BOUNTY
How moon rocks changed our understanding of the
solar system and why we should go back for more.
By Erica Jawin
80 COME ONE, COME ALL
The director general of the European Space Agency
argues for international cooperation on the moon.
By Clara Moskowitz74