Ivan Amato

In the more than 25 years since I started writing, I have written hundreds of articles on topics that collectively cover a broad swath of the science and technology landscape. Here is a small selection of recent articles….

• With philanthropic funding from Schmidt Futures and a partnership with AAAS, I created and edited the online magazine, Moonshot Catalog, which featured long-form journalism about big problems  whose solutions would do a lot of good for a lot of people. The last article posted in 2020.
• I was the execute editor for DARPA, a magazine published in 2018 for the 60th anniversary of the storied DOD house of invention, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
• An essay titled, The Philosopher’s Table, published in 2017 in the online magazine, Last Word on Nothing, about a household object, a table, that functioned as the center of gravity for family culture.
• An essay titled, Moire in the Wild, published in 2016 in the the online magazine, Last World on Nothing, about an optical effect in the constructed landscape that always has amaze and delighted me.
• An article about the large-scale geometry of DNA published in 2015 in the online magazine, Quanta.
• An article in the online magazine, Nautilus, about altered temporal perception in perilous moment, published in November 2014.
• A short feature in the Washington Post on camouflage in marine animals and how materials scientists are trying to emulate it, published September 22, 2014.
• Article on the science café movement in ScienceWriters Magazine, published in October 2014.
• An essay titled Thought’s First Draft, in the online magazine Last Word on Nothing, about blackboards, scientists and the hashing out of ideas when they are new and only partly formed, published February, 28, 2014.
• An essay titled, Mad Collectors of Science, in the online magazine Last Word on Nothing, about the payoff that comes from obsessive collecting of remarkable things, published January 27, 2014
• Short feature in the Washington Post on Dark Lightning, published April 8, 2013.
• Major feature in Nature on “green concrete,” published February 20, 2013.
• Major Feature in Nature on “metallic hydrogen,” published June 3, 2012.
• Feature in the Washington Post on the biological basis of the harsh response to horseradish and the clues it holds to the future pain treatments, published September 5, 2011.
• Short feature in the Washington Post on iridescence in bugs, published May 16, 2011.
• Short feature in the Washington Post on cancer and disease resistance in naked mole rates, published March 7, 2011.
• Short feature in the Washington Post on what volcanic ash and cotton candy have in common, published on May 11, 2010.
• Cover feature in HHMI Bulletin (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) on optogenetics, a new tool for neuroscience, published in May 2010.
• Profile of science-inspired artist Rebecca Kamen in Chemical & Engineering News, published on October 5, 2009.
• Feature article on future Nobel prize winner, Eric Betzig, in Chemical & Engineering News, published on September 4, 2006.
• Feature article in Fortune on bid-minded artists whose work bridges art, science and technology, published on September 5, 2005.
• Feature article in Fortune on people who have the remarkable ability to see ultraviolet radiation, published April 4, 2005.
• Feature for Time on technologies that pros and cons of technologies for seeing through clothes, walls, and other normally opaque barriers, published on June 17, 2001.
• Feature in Time on the world’s major supplier of spider venom for scientific research, published July 30, 2000.