Erin Winick

Holed up in a cramped room of her house, Tamitha Skov gets set in front of a makeshift green screen, which has been cobbled together from two green bed sheets. She cues up a script on her computer and hits Record.

Staring down the lens, she says...

The Carrington Event is probably the most famous occurrence in the history of space weather. A massive solar storm that hit Earth in 1859, it produced so much geomagnetic activity that the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Cuba. Telegraph operators reported sparks flying from their equipment. This doesn’t sound too bad, but if it happened today...

3D printing has always had a problem with speed. Techniques that involve continuously printing layers and rapidly heating materials have moved the needle a bit—but it’s still too slow to be useful for a number of mainstream applications.