BY CLIVE IS BITCOIN THE NEW CONFEDERATE MONEY? THOMPSON BY ZACH BY RJ America’s Greatest Trees ST. GEORGE The Thing That Humbled the Godfather of Soul SMITH APRIL 2018 • SMITHSONIAN.COM Hacking the ARTIFICIAL Future of... INTELLIGENCE CURING CANCER RENEWABLE ENERGY SILICON VALLEY AND Beer! ADVERTISEMENT Join us for the 2nd annual at March 30 – April 1, 2018 Walter E. Washington Convention Center • Washington, DC Where Science Meets Science Fiction special guests include: Stan Lee, CREATOR, SPIDER-MAN Stephen Amell, Arrow • Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy • John Boyega, STAR WARS: The Last Jedi Rich DeVaul, Director of Mad Science at X, the moonshot factory • Chris Carberry, CEO, Explore Mars, Inc. Jared Espley, NASA • Terry Hurford, NASA • Erin Macdonald, Dr. Erin Explains the Universe Michael Rooker, Guardians of the Galaxy • Michael Rosenbaum, Smallville • Joan Salute, NASA Tom Welling, Smallville • Cress Williams, Black Lightning • special guest from LOST IN SPACE For more information and to purchase tickets Smithsonian.com/futurecon # futurecon sponsored by Vol. 49 | No. 01 April 2018 features 32 44 Where the Saving Miss Future Is Born Vanessa Fifty years ago, Stanley A new therapy that Kubrick foresaw the uses the body’s own world we live in today immune system to in his pioneering sci-fi fi ght cancer is off ering thriller 2001: A Space hope to patients with Odyssey. Now a new advanced disease generation of innova- by Robin Marantz Henig tors is forging the next revolutions by T. A. Frail 56 Tomorrow Land Silicon Valley’s 34 brightest stars shed Be(a)ware their light on directions As artifi cial intelligence technology will take us makes startling ad- in the next 20 years vances, surprising (and by Adam Fisher alarming) even the sci- entists who are creating it, our author imagines 60 a world, from scary to liberated, dominated by Buzzed Lightyear Doctors had given Vanessa Johnson Brandon (with her From the fi rst robo beer super smart machines daughter, Keara Grade) a grim prognosis before she (AI-made IntelligentX) by Stephan Talty found a clinical trial for a then-experimental treatment. to brewing on Mars, take a frothy tour of what’ll be on tap in years to come by Franz Lidz prologue departments 07 American Icon: Giant Sequoias 03 Discussion 66 • Landscape: Into the Woods 04 Contributors The Future’s 10 Art: Painter and Muse Dora Maar 92 Ask Smithsonian So Bright 13 Technology: In Bitcoin We Trust A Texas mayor is 14 Glyph: The Hisstory of Snake Oil 16 Natural History: The Great Feather Heist winning international • Origins: The Egg Thief acclaim for powering 20 Archaeology: Scent-Snii ng Dogs his city entirely with 22 Monuments: Remembering Lynching Victims renewable energy. Can • Justice Delayed other metro areas follow Cover: David Arky created this sudsy 24 National Treasure: James Brown’s Keyboard composition by taking multiple photographs his well-lighted path? GREG KAHNGREG 27 Small Talk: Wiretapping of a mug of beer through a gridded pane. by Dan Solomon April 2018 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 1 SMITHSONIAN.COM EDITOR IN CHIEF Michael Caruso DEPUTY EDITOR ART DIRECTOR DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL OPERATIONS Terence Monmaney Maria G. Keehan Debra Rosenberg SENIOR EDITORS Kathleen M. Burke, T.A. Frail, Arik Gabbai, CORRESPONDENTS Jef MacGregor, Ron Rosenbaum, Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, April White Matthew Shaer, Abigail Tucker CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Quentin A. Nardi CONTRIBUTORS Richard Connif , Amy Crawford, COPY CHIEF Karen Larkins Richard Grant, Joshua Hammer, Franz Lidz, Holly Millea, Michelle Nijhuis, Tony Perrottet, Paul Theroux, Clive Thompson DIGITAL EDITOR, SMITHSONIAN.COM Brian Wolly EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Anna Diamond, N. 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Wray (*Ex-Oi cio) 2 SMITHSONIAN.COM | April| April 2018 discussion TWITTER: @SmithsonianMag INSTAGRAM: @smithsonianmagazine FACEBOOK: smithsonianmagazine deserves to have its part in the fi ght against disease recognized by Smithsonian. — James T. Currie, Commissioned Oi cers Association of the USPHS | Landover, Maryland Talking Trees Lincoln Taiz, the retired professor of plant biology, is probably correct that natural selection can explain everything that he knows about plant behavior (“The Whispering of the Trees”), but that does not mean natural selection can explain everything there is to know about plant behavior. Peter Wohlleben and Su- zanne Simard are showing us that there is a lot more