Theo Gray

PopSci’s resident mad scientist and pre-eminent element guru Theo Gray has not only amassed one of the best element-sample collections around, he’s spent the last several years taking very high quality photographs of it.

On Wednesday, the BBC reported that millions of dollars in gold at the central bank of Ethiopia has turned out to be fake: What were supposed to be bars of solid gold turned out to be nothing more than gold-plated steel. They tried to sell the stuff to South Africa and it was sent back when the South Africans noticed this little problem.

American math and science education is a mess. I know a guy who came to America after going to school in the basements of bombed out buildings during the Lebanese civil war. He was better prepared for college than American high school students of the same age.