Issue No. 7 — Off-Label

Who decides what a thing is for — the person who built it, or the person holding it? This week: the Colombia earthquake and the count nobody agrees on; Ebola's grim milestone in the Congo; the off-ramp closes between Washington and Tehran; and NASA buys Voyager 2 a year of life with two heaters and a tape recorder from 1977. Plus: Kyoto University drafts 1,200 Starlink satellites into science without asking, a weapons system that became the world's clock, a phone antenna that found the beginning of the universe, the fifth-grade dropout who invented your microwave, and a superyacht that forgot the one job every ship has. Reporting up front, opinion in the back, and the tuba has moved.