Feature
- Health & Medicine
You, in a Dish
Human cells grown in conditions that mimic life inside the body are beginning to replace lab animals for testing drug candidates and industrial chemicals.
- Materials Science
Quantum Cocoon
Diamond can hold quantum information even at room temperature, which makes it a candidate material for future quantum computers.
- Humans
What’s Cookin’
Science and cooking have gotten intimate, resulting in a new understanding of how molecules are transformed into food and how food is transformed by the body.
-
Dad’s Hidden Influence
Fathers share more than genes with their children. Where a man works, the chemicals he is exposed to, and even his age can leave a medical legacy for future children.
- Astronomy
From Dark Matter to Light
Recent surveys of the shapes, colors, and masses of galaxies have put a new focus on the nitty-gritty of galaxy formation—the complicated physics of the interaction of gas.
-
Road to Eureka!
Researchers are beginning to identify neural components of insightful problem solving, though no scientific consensus exists on how the brain mediates "light-bulb" or "Aha!" moments.
-
The Next Ocean
Increasing carbon dioxide in the air is changing the pH of the ocean, which could mean very different communities of sea creatures.
- Health & Medicine
Beyond Blood
Bloodless MRI seeks a more direct window into the working brain than conventional techniques.
- Paleontology
Twice upon a Time
New fossil finds suggest that the complex features of mammals originated earlier than previously thought and might even have evolved independently in different mammalian lineages.
- Health & Medicine
Rotten Remedy
The gas well-known for its smell of rotten eggs is, recent studies show, a ubiquitous concoction in the body. New studies suggest that the hydrogen sulfide occurring naturally inside us can be both friend and enemy to our health.
- Health & Medicine
Nurturing Our Microbes
Nurturing the microbes living in the human body can pay dividends—from shortening the length of colds to fighting obesity and osteoporosis.
-
Micromanagers
Some scientists believe the human brain is the creation of RNA. Only noncoding RNAs are plentiful, and powerful enough to handle the billions of complex interactions the brain faces every day.
