When you were in college, did you take machine learning courses because you already knew you wanted to pursue a career at Johnson Space Center? Could you explain how you landed your first job there? In 1963, I was hired by NASA as a mathematician. Over…

Is running the Pyongyang Marathon the same as running a marathon anywhere else? The 2017 Pyongyang (Half) Marathon, officially the “28th Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon,” had the most interesting start/finish line of any race I have ever run. It started in a packed Kim Il-Sung Stadium in front of 50,000…

Most gyotaku prints are flat, but I’ve noticed your artwork has a lot of 3D-style life and movement to them. How do you give feeling and sensitivity to something that is essentially a dead animal? Yes, there came a point…

What is your role at the Field Museum of Natural History? I am the Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles, but I am usually just referred to as the dinosaur curator. This is a new role for me — I only started in October; I spent the 11 years previous at…

How do you see yourself fitting into this deeply rooted Japanese traditional sport as a female wrestler, and what changes do you think your presence might bring to the sport? In amateur sumo, when you step into the ring, you learn to respect each other as a human being, regardless…

An identical twin lives in the shadow of her sister. Then conflict boils over into a murder plot. — Dispatch relayed the 911 call just as officers at the Irvine Police Department were starting a new shift. At 3:20 p.m., a young female caller, hysterical with fear, had reported that two gun-wielding assailants were inside her apartment. The assailants had used duct tape and plastic twine to restrain her…

I never really think about ants in the way you probably do, and I only notice them when I’ve accidentally left a piece of fruit out or something like that. Their existence is essentially invisible to most people, I think. Is there anything that we, as humans, can learn from…

How did you become known as “The Moon Rock Hunter”? My students, who participated in my Moon Rock Project, called me the “Moon Rock Hunter” (a knock off of the Crocodile Hunter), and when they talked to the press, the nickname…

How did you get into stunt driving full time? I started consistently working after filming Creed in 2014. They were rehearsing in a parking lot, doing all their motorcycle stuff and everything, and then somebody had to go home. They had to leave the set for…