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Engineering the disposable diaper

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/engineering-the-disposable-diaper

Published: April 24, 2026 06:18

Benjamin Spock told mothers in the mid twentieth century to buy six dozen cloth diapers and a covered pail. Within a decade, both were obsolete.

Modern Hindu temples

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/modern-hindu-temples

Published: April 23, 2026 20:32

Most ancient architectural traditions have withered, but one is enjoying a golden age: Hindu temple architecture.

The invention of buses

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-invention-of-buses

Published: April 23, 2026 20:32

Wheeled vehicles existed for 5,000 years before someone thought of running a bus service.

The world’s most complex machine

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-worlds-most-complex-machine

Published: April 23, 2026 20:18

By betting on extreme ultraviolet lithography long before it worked, ASML became the chokepoint for cutting-edge chips.

How the UK learned and unlearned nuclear

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-the-uk-learned-and-unlearned-nuclear

Published: April 22, 2026 14:28

Britain gave an elite group of engineers sweeping power and massive resources to deliver a nuclear power revolution. But their nuclear dreams crumbled.

How Australia really stopped the boats

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-australia-really-stopped-the-boats

Published: April 17, 2026 12:37

Many countries want to copy Australia’s immigration rules. But its most-copied border policy is not the one that worked.

We’re freezing our eggs; maybe you should too

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/were-freezing-our-eggs-maybe-you-should-too

Published: April 14, 2026 13:01

Science has largely solved the problem of reproductive ageing for women, but they have to prepare while they’re young.

Why Japan has such good railways

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-japan-has-such-good-railways

Published: April 7, 2026 14:36

Japan’s railways are the finest in the world. Other countries can copy its formula.

A brief history of instant coffee

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/a-brief-history-of-instant-coffee

Published: March 31, 2026 12:00

Instant coffee seems unremarkable. It’s just powder and hot water. But making it work took decades.

Microbubbles

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/microbubbles

Published: March 30, 2026 14:54

It’s incredibly hard to deliver drugs to the right organ, especially to reach the brain. Tiny gas-filled spheres that burst on command could change that.

Escaping the Ogallala trap

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/escaping-the-ogallala-trap

Published: March 26, 2026 13:23

There is a closing window to stop driverless cars from creating omnigridlock.

How the world’s first electric grid was built

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-the-worlds-first-electric-grid-was-built

Published: March 19, 2026 16:36

In 1918, fifty systems supplied London’s electricity. Turning these into a grid required war, nationalization, and an act of engineering insubordination.

How TV learned to sell itself

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-tv-learned-to-sell-itself

Published: March 11, 2026 14:51

Sports solved a problem that nearly killed television.

The market for marriage

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/marriage-customs-very-different-from-ours

Published: February 19, 2026 13:31

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good agricultural surplus, must be in want of a wife.

Meet your greens

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/sculpting-cabbages

Published: February 19, 2026 13:30

How a single unappetizing shrub became dozens of different vegetables.

Why Communist reforms nearly always failed

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-communist-reforms-nearly-always-failed

Published: February 19, 2026 12:44

Communism had reforming optimists too. Understanding why they failed can help today’s reformers to avoid the same fate.

The NIMBY problem

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-nimby-problem

Published: February 19, 2026 09:29

Not all NIMBYs are alike. Dividing the most unreasonable ones from the rest might be the key to getting homes built.

Why Europe doesn’t have a Tesla

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-europe-doesnt-have-a-tesla

Published: February 17, 2026 07:05

Europe’s cutting edge firms are falling far behind the American frontier because of restrictive labor laws.

The wonder of modern drywall

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-wonder-of-modern-drywall

Published: February 12, 2026 20:52

No person should get excited about a blank wall. But your wall at home is a reminder that most advancements are almost entirely invisible.

The dysfunctional tiger

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-dysfunctional-tiger

Published: February 10, 2026 17:23

Hong Kong has land to build on, an autocratic government, and the world’s most expensive housing. Why doesn’t it build more?

The perks of being a mole rat

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-perks-of-being-a-mole-rat

Published: February 4, 2026 14:44

The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.

Urban expansion in the age of liberalism

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/urban-expansion-in-the-age-of-liberalism

Published: January 28, 2026 11:50

Many Victorian cities grew by tenfold in a century. Could ours ever do the same?

Fixing retail with land value capture

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/fixing-retail-with-land-value-capture

Published: January 26, 2026 10:24

How to create beautiful shopping streets everywhere.

The gold plating of American water

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-gold-plating-of-american-water

Published: January 21, 2026 15:06

Clean drinking water is a modern miracle. But it has become expensive, and it doesn’t need to be.

Fermenting revolution

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/fermenting-revolution

Published: January 19, 2026 12:12

The scientific and technological battle against bad bread had a role in women’s liberation.

The United States needs fewer bus stops

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-united-states-needs-fewer-bus-stops

Published: January 14, 2026 15:12

Bus stop balancing is fast, cheap, and effective. It can turn a service people tolerate into one they’re happy to use.

Cheap ornament and status games

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/cheap-ornament-and-status-games

Published: January 12, 2026 15:23

Was modernism originally a way to signal taste instead of wealth?

The value of technological progress

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-value-of-technological-progress

Published: January 8, 2026 19:03

Evidence from the life of Matt Clancy.

The golden age of vaccine development

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-golden-age-of-vaccine-development

Published: January 7, 2026 14:20

The first vaccine was a lucky accident. Now we can design new vaccines in weeks, atom by atom.

The Renaissance book that heralded growth

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-renaissance-book-that-heralded-growth

Published: December 23, 2025 11:06

Long before modern science, Europeans learned to see their own time as an age of invention rather than decline.

Were classical statues painted horribly?

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/were-classical-statues-painted-horribly

Published: December 16, 2025 13:48

It is often suggested that modern viewers dislike painted reconstructions of Greek and Roman statues because our taste differs from that of the ancients. This essay proposes an alternative.

The evolution of bacteria

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-evolution-of-bacteria-2

Published: December 16, 2025 12:57

Generations of microbes evolve in hours, not millennia. By speeding up Darwin’s clock, scientists have watched evolution happen in real time, and it’s changed how we understand natural selection.

Two is already too many

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/two-is-already-too-many

Published: December 10, 2025 13:58

Every hundred South Koreans today will have only six great-grandchildren between them. The rest of the world can learn from Korea’s catastrophe to avoid the same fate.

How to spot a monopoly

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-spot-a-monopoly

Published: December 4, 2025 05:58

Competition makes capitalism work. A new method for measuring it may be the holy grail of economic regulation.

Watch men

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/watch-men

Published: December 2, 2025 13:46

Quartz helped Japan’s watchmakers nearly drive Switzerland’s watch industry out of business. But the Swiss fought back.

Nature’s laboratory

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/natures-laboratory

Published: November 27, 2025 13:43

Millions of years of evolution have given us genomes that are like giant datasets for drug development. Finally, we are learning how to study them.

The triumph of logical English

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-logical-triumph-of-english

Published: November 26, 2025 15:04

English prose has become much easier to read. But shorter sentences had little to do with it.

The Great Downzoning

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-great-downzoning

Published: November 24, 2025 19:24

It was once legal to build almost anything, everywhere. Then, in the space of a few decades, nearly every city in the Western world banned densification. What happened?

Inflatable space stations

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/inflatable-space-stations

Published: November 21, 2025 13:16

If we ever want to live in space, we need to work out a way of creating artificial gravity.

The three-thousand-year journey of colchicine

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-three-thousand-year-journey-of-colchicine

Published: November 20, 2025 13:00

For centuries it was a poison. Then colchicine rewrote treatment for gout, heart disease, and later, the debate over drug exclusivity.

Washer woman

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/inventing-the-dishwasher

Published: November 13, 2025 22:32

In 1965, married American women did 34 hours of housework weekly. By 2010, that had fallen to 18 hours. The dishwasher wasn’t the only cause, but it certainly helped.

The developing world needs more roads

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-developing-world-needs-more-roads

Published: November 11, 2025 17:08

The cities of the developing world could be its growth engine if their streets were not so gridlocked. The solution is laying out wider roads.

How Airbus took off

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-airbus-took-off

Published: October 29, 2025 15:13

Airbus is an example of successful industrial policy and the rare European company that is better than its American rival. Could its success be copied elsewhere?

Turning trains into trams

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/turning-trains-into-trams

Published: October 29, 2025 12:18

Trains often stop at the edge of town centres, forcing inconvenient transfers. Running railway lines onto tram networks provides a solution.

How a Norwegian chemist defeated lead paint

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-a-norwegian-chemist-defeated-lead-paint

Published: October 24, 2025 13:45

Lead paint was banned in the late twentieth century. Before that, it was outcompeted by a cheap and safe alternative.

The merits of unified ownership

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-merits-of-unified-ownership

Published: October 22, 2025 15:10

Why do some neighborhoods get garden squares and graceful streets, while others don’t? The answer isn’t zoning or taste, it’s who owns the land, and how unified that ownership is.

The beauty of batteries

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-beauty-of-batteries

Published: October 17, 2025 20:38

Keeping the grid stable requires overbuilding generating capacity, driving up costs. Batteries fix that.

Toronto’s underground labyrinth

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/torontos-underground-labyrinth

Published: October 9, 2025 18:06

Pedestrian tunnels are often thought to undermine urban life. The opposite happened in Toronto.

The first non-opioid painkiller

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-first-non-opioid-painkiller

Published: October 6, 2025 14:57

For nearly two centuries, pain relief meant effective but addictive opioids. Scientists have finally made something better.

The algorithm will see you now

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-algorithm-will-see-you-now

Published: September 25, 2025 10:01

Radiology combines digital images, clear benchmarks, and repeatable tasks. But replacing humans with AI is harder than it seems.

How market design can feed the poor

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-market-design-can-feed-the-poor

Published: September 22, 2025 09:02

America’s food banks had a broken distribution system. University of Chicago economists fixed it.

Sunscreen for the planet

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/sunscreen-for-the-planet

Published: September 18, 2025 10:36

The world is warming faster than we can cut emissions. Volcanoes are already cooling the planet, with particles that reflect sunlight. Maybe we can too.

How to make an antibody

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-make-an-antibody

Published: September 18, 2025 10:04

Antibody therapies are four of the world’s ten best selling drugs. If they were cheaper, they could prevent millions of deaths from rabies, malaria, and dengue.

Why science needs outsiders

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-science-needs-outsiders

Published: September 18, 2025 09:55

Science has forgotten that the greatest breakthroughs often come from outsiders who are able to take a fresh perspective.

The death rays that guard life

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-death-rays-that-guard-life

Published: September 18, 2025 09:21

We disinfect water before we drink it. Germicidal ultraviolet could make airborne disease as rare as those carried by water.

Rivers are now battlefields

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/rivers-are-now-battlefields

Published: September 18, 2025 08:33

Chinese dams will hold billions of people downstream to ransom. Could solar-powered desalination make them irrelevant?

Magical systems thinking

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/magical-systems-thinking

Published: September 12, 2025 09:34

Systems thinking promises to give us a toolkit to design complex systems that work from the ground up. It fails because it ignores an important fact: systems fight back.

Liberté, égalité, radioactivité

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/liberte-egalite-radioactivite

Published: September 4, 2025 11:56

France built 40 nuclear reactors in a decade. Here’s how they did it, and how the world can follow their lead today.

How to redraw a city

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-redraw-a-city

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Japan faced some of the world’s toughest planning problems. It solved them by letting homeowners replan whole neighborhoods privately by supermajority vote.

The magic of through running

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-magic-of-through-running

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Commuter trains often stop at the edge of cities. Short tunnels can link them up, creating metro networks for a fraction of the cost of building them from scratch.

How one Kiwi tamed inflation

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-one-kiwi-tamed-inflation

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Inflation targeting is now standard in central banking. But it began with an offhand comment and a political gamble in New Zealand – long before economists took it seriously.

The secret fast track for animal drugs

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-secret-fast-track-for-animal-drugs

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Animal drugs are approved much faster than human drugs. Perhaps we could adopt the same model for humans without compromising on safety.

The end of lead

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-of-lead

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Lead has been all but eliminated in most of the developed world. Doing the same for the rest of the world might not be difficult.

Brain-computer interfaces

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/brain-computer-interfaces

Published: June 12, 2025 08:15

Brain implants are letting people move, speak, and interact with machines using only their thoughts. The first FDA approvals may arrive within five years.

The bad science behind expensive nuclear

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-bad-science-behind-expensive-nuclear

Published: May 27, 2025 13:00

How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing program came to be – and why its time may now be up.

How to write for Works in Progress

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-write-for-works-in-progress

Published: April 4, 2025 14:16

We’re looking for new authors and article pitches.

Fertility on demand

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/fertility-on-demand

Published: March 13, 2025 11:30

Many women face a choice between career advancement or motherhood. But emerging fertility technologies could allow women to have it all.

The failure of the land value tax

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-failure-of-the-land-value-tax

Published: March 13, 2025 11:30

Land value taxes are once again becoming a popular all-purpose solution to housing issues. But implementing them in early 1900s Britain destroyed the then-dominant Liberal Party.

The prehistoric psychopath

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-prehistoric-psychopath

Published: March 13, 2025 11:30

Life in the state of nature was less violent than you might think. Most of our ancestors avoided conflict. But this made them vulnerable to a few psychopaths.

The rise and fall of the Hanseatic League

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hanseatic-league

Published: March 13, 2025 11:30

The Hanseatic League united merchants to bargain with kings, blockade cities, and even win wars. But when technology changed, defections began and the coalition fell apart.

King of fruits

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/king-of-fruits

Published: March 13, 2025 11:30

Ordinary yellow pineapples were once so precious they were rented for display at dinner parties, but centuries of innovation made them commonplace.

Steam networks

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/steam-networks

Published: March 13, 2025 11:26

New York’s skyscrapers soar above a century-old steam network that still warms the city. While the rest of the world moved to hot water, Manhattanites still buy steam by the megapound.

Chinese towers and American blocks

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/chinese-towers-and-american-blocks

Published: March 13, 2025 11:26

China builds towers in a park, while America, and nearly everyone else, builds squat mid-rise blocks. The difference comes down to regulation, not culture.

Why housing shortages cause homelessness

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-housing-shortages-cause-homelessness

Published: December 5, 2024 14:34

Why do high-cost cities have more homelessness? It’s not just about rents — it’s also about the rooms friends and family can’t afford to share.

How Madrid built its metro cheaply

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply

Published: December 5, 2024 12:45

Madrid tripled the length of its metro system in just 12 years — faster and cheaper than almost any other city in the world. What can its expansion teach other cities?

The world of tomorrow

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-world-of-tomorrow

Published: December 5, 2024 12:42

When the future arrived, it felt… ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?

Animals as chemical factories

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/animals-as-chemical-factories

Published: December 5, 2024 11:29

Horses bled for antivenom, crabs drained for endotoxin tests, and silkworms boiled for silk. Science can now replace these practices with synthetic alternatives — but we need to find ways to scale them.

How big data created the modern dairy cow

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-big-data-created-the-modern-dairy-cow

Published: December 5, 2024 10:53

What do cryogenics, butterfat tests, and genetic data have in common? They’re some of the reasons behind the world’s most productive dairy cows. Here’s how it all started.

Progress unmoored

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/progress-unmoored

Published: December 5, 2024 10:20

Airports and cities may face delays and rising costs, but cruise ships keep breaking records. They show what can still be built.

Machines for living in

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/machines-for-living-in

Published: December 5, 2024 05:39

Buildings are not just art – they are the places people live in, work in, and experience every day. True functionalism combines utility and beauty for the people who use it most.

The ultra-selfish gene

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-ultra-selfish-gene

Published: September 3, 2024 11:37

We now have the power to genetically modify entire species by inserting certain genes into them with brute force. Doing this to malaria-carrying mosquitoes could allow us to wipe out humanity’s most deadly killer.

How pour-over coffee got good

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-pour-over-coffee-got-good

Published: September 3, 2024 10:38

Pour-over coffee has long been popular with coffee enthusiasts, but it frustrated coffee shops because it takes so long to make. That’s changing.

Where inflation comes from

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/where-inflation-comes-from

Published: August 30, 2024 16:00

How we calculate inflation has always been a subject of debate. Small changes that might seem trivial can lead to enormous changes in how well-off we think we are.

Lab-grown diamonds

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/lab-grown-diamonds

Published: August 30, 2024 16:00

Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and vastly cheaper than mined diamonds. Beating nature took decades of hard graft and millions of pounds of pressure.

Doom scrolling

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/doom-scrolling

Published: August 30, 2024 14:00

We may be close to rediscovering thousands of texts that had been lost for millennia. Their contents may reshape how we understand the Ancient World.

Libraries of matter

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/libraries-of-matter

Published: August 29, 2024 14:00

Libraries contain books, yes. But they also contain latex rubber, carbon fiber fabrics, and graphene aerogel. And in some materials libraries you can cut, cast, drill, sand, scrape, and sculpt too.

How to start an advance market commitment

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-to-start-an-advance-market-commitment

Published: May 31, 2024 14:52

Advance Market Commitments allow us to buy technology from the future to support its development: vaccines, carbon capture technology, and even spacecraft. Here’s how you can start your own.

Why prediction markets aren’t popular

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-prediction-markets-arent-popular

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Prediction markets are legal, contrary to popular belief. But they remain unpopular, because they lack key features that make markets attractive.

New York’s long road to congestion pricing

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/new-yorks-long-road-to-congestion-pricing

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

It has taken almost 60 years to bring traffic congestion pricing to New York. This is the story of how politicians and advocates built the coalition it needed to finally happen.

The beauty of concrete

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-beauty-of-concrete

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.

How the war on drunk driving was won

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-the-war-on-drunk-driving-was-won

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Deterrence alone might not stop crime. But, as the campaign against drunk driving shows, it could help create the norms that do.

Britain’s forgotten financial crisis

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/britains-forgotten-financial-crisis

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Britain had its fastest ever house price growth not in the 2020s but in the 1970s. Houses then were also getting smaller and worse. The problem was a lack of supply.

Getting materials out of the lab

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/getting-materials-out-of-the-lab

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Inventing new materials is only the first step. Getting them into mass production and use is just as hard.

Gentrification as a housing problem

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/gentrification-as-a-housing-problem

Published: May 17, 2024 09:00

Gentrification can be a real problem for people it pushes out. But the root cause is inflexible housing supply, and solutions that don’t tackle that can make the problem worse.

The road from serfdom

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-road-from-serfdom

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

Unwinding Russian serfdom took half a century. To eventually do it in the face of powerful opposition took a remarkable approach that let peasants vote themselves into freedom.

Compensating compassion

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/compensating-compassion

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

Too few people donate their organs, dead or alive. How can we make it easier to donate, but avoid the abuses that some fear from cash payments?

Life in the time of Zika

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/life-in-the-time-of-zika

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

I was deliberately infected with Zika to test a vaccine. Human challenge trials like my one could save millions of lives by developing prophylactics more quickly.

How Israel turned homeowners into YIMBYs

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-israel-turned-homeowners-into-yimbys

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

Homeowners are often the biggest opponents of building new homes. An Israeli reform reversed this by making homeowners the main beneficiaries of development.

Why we stopped building cut and cover

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-we-stopped-building-cut-and-cover

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

We used to dig up roads to put trains underneath – cheaply. Ever-better tunnel boring machines have made the disruption this causes unnecessary.

The future of silk

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-future-of-silk

Published: February 16, 2024 13:30

Silk is stronger than steel or kevlar. We are already using it to transport vaccines without cold chains and make automatically dissolving stitches. What else could it be used for?