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How did the Taliban seize power so quickly? While the weakness of the Afghan state was no secret, the speed of the Taliban’s victory stemmed from a little-appreciated factor: their ability to use Afghanistan’s human geography to exploit that state fragility. In particular, the country’s low population density empowers fast-moving and cohesive attackers.

Up to one-third of the Earth's food is never eaten, but two new projects by a University of Maryland environmental science and technology researcher (below) seek to turn this waste into marketable biofuel and bioplastic projects. From leftovers neglected in the fridge until they go bad to crops that spoil because of faulty storage, a shocking one-third of the world’s food—nearly 1.5 billion tons yearly, according to a United Nations estimate—goes uneaten.

New funding from the National Science Foundation will expand the reach of Engineering for US All, a program to make engineering accessible in high school launched by UMD President Darryll J. Pines in 2018.