ARTS
24 Books
Bill Gates’ blueprint for
fi xing the climate crisis
25 Author of the week
The law professor
who became a
beat cop
26 Art & Home
Media
An artistic
exploration of
black grief in
America
28 Film
HBO’s
damning
docuseries
Allen v.
FarrowNEWS
4 Main stories
The big freeze in Texas;
U.S. Covid-19 death toll
tops 500,000; attorney
general nominee Merrick
Garland takes aim at
domestic terrorism
6 Controversy of the week
Weighing the legacy of
Rush Limbaugh
7 The U.S. at a glance
Tiger Woods injured in
car crash; New York
prosecutors get Donald
Trump’s tax returns
8 The world at a glance
Mount Etna blows its top;
a massive oil spill coats
Israeli beaches in tar
10 People
Chloé Zhao’s journey from
China to the Dakotas; Rob
Lowe on getting sober
11 Briefi ng
The growing threat of
nuclear proliferation
12 Best U.S. columns
Predicting a return to
pre-Covid life; a surge in
anti-Asian violence
15 Best international
columns
Australia’s digital news
showdown with Facebook
16 Talking points
Sen. Ted Cruz’s Mexican
getaway; New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s
mounting scandals;
investigating the Capitol
insurrectionLEISURE
31 Food & Drink
A recipe for birria de
res, Instagram’s favorite
Mexican stew
32 Coping
Parenting a depressed
teenager in the pandemic;
homemade maple syrupBUSINESS
36 News at a glance
Boeing’s latest aerial
disaster; the Fed pledges to
keep supporting economy
37 Making money
Why Americans are losing
confi dence in college;
Robinhood gets grilled
38 Best columns
No spring boom for the
travel industry; Oracle’s
Big Brother pitch to ChinaWaiting to buy supplies at a grocery store in Austin (p.4)Chloé Zhao
(p.10)
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Bad news first: If there was ever life on Mars, it is likely to have
disappeared close to 4 billion years ago, as Mars’ atmosphere
thinned and any surface water froze or evaporated. Even if there
is any residue of life in the Jezero Crater, by the shores of an an-
cient lake, the Perseverance rover that landed there this week
(see Health & Science, p. 23) may not find it. And in any case
we won’t know for a long while. The rock samples Perseverance
is taking will be left on Mars to get picked up in 2028—if all
goes as planned. But still: We are looking for life on Mars. That
is no small thing. Charles Fishman’s 50th-anniversary appraisal
of the first moon landing, One Giant Leap, detailed how that
mission was the catalyst for much of today’s technology. The
search for life outside Earth may eventually deliver similar ben-
efits, and more abstract ones too. Say “we” are looking for life
on Mars, and everybody grasps right away that “we” means our
whole species—all of us.I don’t know how high the chances of finding traces of past life
on Perseverance’s journey, or any journey to Mars, might be. But
I imagine that the odds of finding some life, somewhere in the
universe, are not bad. Finding that we are not unique has been
the general arc of human history since we figured out that the
sun does not revolve around Earth. The big question for us—
yes, again I mean all of us—is how the exploration of space in
the next decades or centuries will change how we see ourselves.
In The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury explored how on its
way to Mars humanity could export its own pathologies. We
don’t need to worry that contact with us will be devastating to
the Martians; any microbes that might have been there are now
most likely gone. The real question is whether in traveling to
space we end up expanding our horizons or intensifying our nar-
row conflicts. Let’s hope it’s the former.Editor’s letter
Contents 3
Mark Gimein
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