Smithsonian Magazine: September 2012
Features
Keep It Simple
From a computer so revolutionary it needed only one button, to a wardrobe filled with a single signature sweater, Steve Jobs’ unwavering creative discipline chartered a new era in American design
By Walter Isaacson
Better Living Through Imitation
Biomimicry engineers are finding the designs of the future in the greatest field laboratory of the past—the natural world
By Tom Vanderbilt
China's Most Dangerous Man
Arrested and harassed by the Chinese government artist Ai Weiwei makes daring works unlike anything the world has ever seen. His first U.S. retrospective opens in Washington this month at the Hirshhorn
By Mark Stevens
Overnight Sensation
How an obscure symbol leapt from the typewriter key to fame
By William F. Allman
Extreme Pogo
The classic jumping toy was essentially unchanged for 80 years—until three crazy inventors created powerful new gravity-defying machines that can leap over (small) buildings in a single bound
By Ariel Sabar
National Treasure: Pretty in Pink
The plastic flamingo has ascended from American kitsch to style icon
By Abigail Tucker
Koolhaas Country
The world's most controversial architect reveals his next project—reinventing the countryside
By Nicolai Ouroussoff
Departments
From the Castle
From the Castle
Secretary Clough has the skull of naturalist Robert Kennicott in his office to remind him of the remarkable scientists who work for the Smithsonian
By G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Parasight
A new discovery might force the invisible malaria parasite out of hiding.
By Elizabeth Finkel
Stealth Invader
One of the world’s most devastating predators is brainless, slow... and voracious
By Abigail Tucker
For Your Eyes Only
Hidden codes have existed through history—especially imaginary ones
By Mark Strauss
Faith
How She Overcame
Aung San Suu Kyi talks about the secret weapon in her decades of struggle against Burma’s military dictators—the power of Buddhism
By Joshua Hammer
Science
Planet Fever
Why hundreds of recently discovered planets are a boon to science—and philosophy
By Timothy Ferris
Interview
The Martin Chronicles
England’s most famous living novelist has moved to America—and tilted the literary world
By Ron Rosenbaum
Books
Books
A new history blows the cover on British spies in World War II. Plus: wild Antarctica, planting a forest and a paean to probability
By Chloë Schama
Around the Mall
Trunk Show
A time capsule casts new light on the Zoo’s tradition of elephant care
By Joseph Stromberg
Around the Mall
This Just Out
A new biography explores the story of the famous diva who once owned the Hope Diamond
By Leah Binkovitz
Fast Forward
Fast Forward
The hub of Richard Branson's plans for Virgin Galactic, where tourists and scientists alike take off for the great beyond
By Mark Strauss
