From Insect Drones to a Murderous Love Triangle

Former British paragliding champ Adrian Thomas is behind some of the most thrilling, and unsettling, tech out there.

Imagine yourself in a war zone — perhaps you’re hiding in a forest, or taking cover in a ruined building. Suddenly you hear flapping wings and a buzzing sound that’s getting closer. Today, it’s probably just an insect. But in the future, it might mean you have just been detected.

Unmanned drones have been around for quite some time. For most of that time, they have looked and worked like traditional aircraft and helicopters, but that may be about to change. Animal Dynamics, a British startup spinoff from Oxford University, produces biologically inspired vehicles and drones — including the dragonfly-inspired “Skeeter,” a drone the size of a pen intended for military reconnaissance.

The former state assemblywoman has overcome much worse than an overly affectionate VP.

“I was one of the lucky ones,” Lucy Flores tells the camera. It’s 2009, and Flores, a third-year law student, is running to represent Nevada’s Assembly District 28. In a video produced by the National Women’s Law Center, Flores recounts growing up amid gang violence as a first-generation Mexican-American in Las Vegas. She spent time behind bars but was able to turn her life around, she says. Flores went on to win that election, becoming one of the first Latinas elected to the Nevada state legislature.

Relatively lower wages have made it an attractive destination for foreign manufacturers. But now workers are demanding a bigger slice of the pie.

Since the start of the year, there have been dozens of factory stoppages and more than 1,000 calls for industrial action in Mexico. In a country that prides itself on three decades of labor peace, the strikes have affected employers from the export manufacturers, known as maquiladoras, as well as Coca-Cola soda bottler Arca Continental.

The wave of industrial action in pursuit of higher wages has put under the spotlight Mexico’s long-competitive advantage as a cheap location for U.S. and Canadian factories as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a revised version of NAFTA, is being finalized. Employers say Mexico’s relatively strike-free history has been key to attracting investment over the past quarter-century.