M. Mitchell Waldrop

Author

M. Mitchell Waldrop is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Man-Made Minds,  Complexity, and The Dream Machine, and he was formerly an editor at Nature.

Mon, 06/25/2018 - 12:03
It’s Time for a Government Reset, and the Ideas Are FlourishingNew tools and approaches have inspired a radical rethinking of the machinery of government
Thu, 08/19/2021 - 12:02
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. If the cascading upheavals of the past year have done nothing else, they’ve spurred widespread calls for reform and renewal in just about every institution we have. A mishandled public-…
Design for RecyclingComplex packaging is a headache for recyclers. So why not consider the end point in the first place?
Mon, 12/14/2020 - 12:02
If you were to contact a group of recycling professionals, as one recent survey did, and ask them to list all the ways that consumer product manufacturers drive them crazy, you’d probably hear a lot about “shrink sleeves”—those full-body, shrink-to-…
Will Robots Take My Job?Automation threatens to replace some workers but can grow overall employment
Wed, 10/31/2018 - 12:01
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Back in the 1990s, when U.S. banks started installing automated teller machines in a big way, the human tellers who worked in those banks seemed to be facing rapid obsolescence. If machines…
3D Printing Finds a Custom Foothold in Manufacturing, Part 2Innovations in speed and compounds
Tue, 06/26/2018 - 12:03
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Part one looked at the innovative possibilities inherent in 3D printing; here we consider some of its shortcomings and the solutions that companies are finding. A few years into this century…
3D Printing Finds a Custom Foothold in Manufacturing, Part 1From rocket thrusters to shoe soles—additive technologies expanding sights
Mon, 06/25/2018 - 12:03
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Since May 2015, in a section of its WorldPort distribution center in Louisville, Kentucky, United Parcel Service (UPS) has been operating a spare parts warehouse with no spare parts. Instead…