The Editors of Issue #4 take a look at the concept of “food infrastructures.”

How did plastic garbage patches floating in the ocean become an object of public concern? Baptiste Monsaingeon relates the media campaigns that turned the gradual accumulation of oceanic waste from an abstract and imperceptible concern to a dire emergency requiring
immediate attention.

Christopher Kelty opens up a toolkit from the 1990s to explore the prehistory of apps, platforms, and algorithms.

It was hard not be impressed with how this simple chart summarized the course of an astoundingly complex historical event

Brian Lindseth explains how “resilience” migrated from ecology of the 1970s to the systemic risks of the present.

How do you plan for the sudden onset of total war? Stephen J. Collier and Andrew Lakoff describe the construction of a vast collection of data about the vital, vulnerable systems of every nation in the world in the aftermath of World War II.

What does experimentation look like in the time of emergency? Ann H. Kelly explores the design of clinical trials amidst the ebola crisis.