Artist Luchita Hurtado’s Sudden Success at 99

Venezeula-born, California-based artist Luchita Hurtado’s success at 99 years old came rather late (she’s been painting since the 1940s) and somewhat unintentionally, but she’s embraced it. For many years, she was known as an artist’s wife (she was married to Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paalen, then American painter Lee Mullican, with whom she has a son, artist Matt Mullican) and spent “decades cheering them on while quietly …

Eating Sea Urchins Could Restore the Ocean’s Ecosystem

Contrary to reports that conservation is the only way to save our oceans, one company’s hypothesis suggests that eating more sea urchins (urchin roe or uni in Japanese) could actually help restore balance in the aquatic ecosystem. Urchinomics (the aptly named organization testing this theory) found urchins thriving in waters now abandoned by predators due to pollution, heating or overfishing. Increased urchin populations means trouble …

The Future of Space Food

MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative focuses on all kinds of research and preparation for “the day when humanity becomes a space-native civilization, as comfortable in the cosmos as we have been on Earth.” The team (made up of 50+ graduate students, staff, scientists, designers, and engineers) works on countless aspects of space travel, but hones in on two central topics: boredom and food. These …