FROM THE EDITORS

THE SEASON’S CHALLENGES have seen us constantly reflecting on – and immensely grateful for – the role of science and technology in understanding how our Earth is changing, the likely results of that change, and what we all ought to be thinking about to make things better – or, at least, no worse.

As unprecedented bushfires stained the summer skies in eastern and southern Australia, it seemed natural that our thoughts turned to water and sky.

In this issue you’ll meet the marine researchers who are getting help from the world’s most magnificent pelagic bird, the wandering albatross, to find illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels operating in Southern Ocean waters. Many deep-ocean fishers play by the rules and adhere to various protocols protecting fishing stocks and seabirds; the “dark” fishing IUU crew do not.

Further north (but still on the cool side, in Tasmania), we meet marine biologists seeking a “super-kelp” to bolster Australia’s decling temperate-climate reefs. Staying on the ocean blue, you’ll also join locals in the mid-pacific on the atoll, where a collaboration between science and traditional culture is improving the lot of a popular food fish.

Bushfires always make us long for rain, so turning to weather guy Nate Byrne to tell us about clouds made a shower of sense. Nate got his start – cue interesting combination – through a degree and physics and the Royal Australian Navy. We trust you’ll enjoy his favourite less-typical clouds as much as we do.

Nate’s nifty personal story points to the issue’s other strong theme – how science and technology are increasingly capable of narrowing focus for an individual fix.

We take a training run with Drew Turney through the impending Internet of Disposable Things. Paul Beigler guides us through the complex trials and ethical dilemmas of embryoids, and Cosmos’s Editor-at-large, Elizabeth Finkel, ponders how decades of overlapping genetics research can lead from blue-sky lab work to genuine hope for salvation. And Karen Hao reports from China to reveal the billion-dollar tech firms using AI to tailor individual approaches that help students learn.

Last but far from least, we learn about an immense international astronomy effort to map the stars, and meet the project’s remarkable workers – the “lost women” of Australian astronomy.

From the blackness of space through cloudy sky to deep blue seas, we trust you enjoy Cosmos 86.