Allow me to direct your attention to three stories of mine that have come out in the past few days:

1. In Popular Mechanics, I take a look at the convergence of the old and the new. Paleontologists are using the latest laser-scanning technology and 3D-printing devices to visualize and replicate fossils. When you are faced with a graveyard of forty fossil whales, this kind of thing is a really big help.

2. In 1918, a third of people came down with a new kind of flu that killed 50 million people. It was the worst pandemic of the past century by far. What was so awful about it? For my latest “Matter” column for the New York Times I