High School Student Dasia Taylor’s Color-Changing Sutures Detect Infection

Iowa City West High School student Dasia Taylor utilized beet dye to develop suture thread that changes color when a surgical wound becomes infected. Taylor began working on the concept in October 2019 and this January she became a finalist at the Regeneron Science Talent Search (a prestigious competition for high school seniors). Taylor was motivated by data from infections after Cesarean sections—and utilized the …

benny blanco + Omar Apollo: Care

“Care,” a single on producer benny blanco’s second album, Friends Keep Secrets 2, focuses on the vocal performance of Hobart, Indiana-born singer-songwriter and guitarist Omar Apollo. The track is sparse, yet pretty and emotional. Apollo deliver delicate verses, while the chorus crescendoes into an impassioned plea: “And you left me all fucked up / I probably pushed my luck / I couldn’t take no more …

Smriti Keshari + Eric Schlosser’s 59-Minute Immersive Multimedia Experience, “the bomb”

An experimental film that warns of impending doom from the more than 13,000 nuclear warheads globally

the bomb—created by Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser—debuted in 2016, on the final night of the Tribeca Film Festival. The audience, standing huddled, watched as electronic band The Acid performed an album-length sonic experiment over a 360-degree visual accompaniment: archival footage and apocalyptic (yet informative) animations about nuclear weapons. Then it toured other festivals—the Berlin Film Festival, Glastonbury—and eventually appeared online for at-home viewers. Now, …