An icon of Silicon Valley's counterculture, Stewart Brand is confronting his final years in a home that embodies the self-sufficient, DIY ethos of his famous Whole Earth Catalog. The three-building cluster in Petaluma where Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan live. The new studio is in the center. This past January, Stewart Brand published a book, "Maintenance is what keeps everything going," he begins. "It's what keeps life going." Brand's life has been going for 87 years, but lately the going has been tough. The man known for creating the Whole Earth Catalog --the 1960s countercultural guide to self-sufficiency that Steve Jobs was fond of --has an incurable disease and is down to 130 pounds, an alarming weight for a nearly 6-footer. Brand's mind is sharp as ever; you can't talk to the man for five minutes without learning something. But his once-nimble movements are now cautious, and he's never far from an oxygen tank. Stewart Brand's body, in other words, requires constant maintenance.

Navy Secretary John Phelan warns the U.S. must treat shipbuilding with wartime urgency, launching a new office to address submarine delays and outdated acquisition processes.

Aimee Blacker wants to delve into postgraduate study across a range of disciplines. Aimee Blacker felt a bit lost during the early stages of her undergraduate degree. She was studying occupational therapy at the University of Newcastle (UoN) and while she knew she was on the right track, she wasn't too sure about her destination. That changed in her final year when she discovered the work of Carly Rogers, an American occupational therapist who has a surf-based program for war veterans. Blacker, 24, has been a keen surfer for about 15 years and has a job she loves in pediatrics.