"Reentry" by Eric Berger, the senior space editor at Ars Technica, describes how this was achieved. The ingredients which produced the Falcon 9 were excellent engineers, a new form of government support for spaceflight, a hard-driving culture and an extraordinarily demanding boss.

The book starts with a story in 2008. SpaceX's first rocket, the Falcon 1, was small, troublesome and uncommercial. By the time it finally reached orbit — on the fourth attempt — SpaceX had burned through almost all the money that Elon Musk, the company's founder, had available. For the company to have a future, it needed some big government contracts, and that required a much larger launcher: the Falcon 9, which required nine of the Merlin engines that powered the Falcon 1 to be joined together.

That challenge fell to Tom Mueller, SpaceX's first employee, who had developed the Merlin engine in the first place. His team's efforts led to the arguably company-saving first test firing of the Falcon 9's first stage in November 2008. "We were out there beating history, but Elon was still pissed at us," Mr Mueller said. "Like everything else we've ever done, it was way slower than Elon wanted."

Mr Berger's book is full of stories of impressive achievements being met in such ways. It also shows clearly why people put up with such things. Mr Musk's employees knew that he really cared about making better rockets, and that he was taking big financial risks. But they came to value his insistence on the overall goal of making a rocket that was largely reusable.

Organisms in the soil are both copious and diverse. They range in size from the one-celled bacteria, to the more complex tiny bugs, and to the larger organisms such as insects and plants. Soil microbes (微生物) are too small to be seen with the unaided eye. Bacteria are the most plentiful microbes in soil, with a population of 10¹⁰-10¹¹ individuals and 6,000-50,000 species per gram of soil and a biomass of 40-500 grams per square metre.

If we are to understand the functions of soil microbes and the impact of management practices on soil quality, we need to analyze microbial community composition beyond just counting individuals. Traditional methods of studying microbes often rely on culturing techniques, which have significant limitations as they can only detect a small part of the microbial community. Advanced genetic (基因的) techniques, such as DNA sequencing and PCR, however, enable the detection and categorization of previously unculturable microbes. These methods enhance our ability to identify shifts in microbial communities, providing critical insights into soil health and functional dynamics.

Soil microbes play both beneficial and harmful roles as contributors to soil environmental problems such as climate change and groundwater pollution. The physical chemical, and biological soil characteristics and their interactions with the resident community of soil microbes have a significant impact on the growth and activity of these microbes. As our understanding of these complex relationships develops, we should be able to develop soil management practices that are sustainable and can lead to preservation and improvement of soil quality.

One of the most exciting advancements involves Copiapoa, a genus of cacti with at least 32 species found in the coastal Atacama Desert, the driest nonpolar desert on Earth. These cacti, typically five to six inches wide, can form gray-green bushes that spread out over an area otherwise empty of vegetation.

Documented by many scientists, Copiapoas probably survive by "drinking" the salty fog that sweeps in from the sea every morning, as well as the dew — tiny bits of water — that forms on their spines (尖刺) and skin. This has inspired researcher Tegwen Malik from Swansea University to think about whether the dew-colleting process might be reproduced in metal structures.

Specifically, Malik took a close look at the one-and-a-quarter-inch spines of Copiapoas and found that their surface has a series of tiny channels that broaden at the base. "This creates a surface roughness that enables dewdrops to move along them even against gravity," she says.

Starting in 2013, she set out to re-create that structure by engineering a flat metal reproduction of the stems and spines of the Copiapoa, which she began testing under a series of different temperatures and humidities. After several years of experiments — testing indoor and outdoor conditions, and with various cooling methods — she finally got it to work. In 2023, Malik published a study showing that the irregular surface was 8 percent more efficient at harvesting dew than a flat sheet used as a baseline.

Malik imagines desert homes with water-collecting features to provide clean water in dry regions. "The easiest way could be to place dew-harvesting surfaces on roofs, but you could also have these structures in tents in the desert," she says. "We truly have hidden treasures in the Copiapoa, and we are only just learning some of their secrets."