Feature
- Astronomy
Big Broadcast
A record-breaking radio burst from the sun last Dec. 6 temporarily overwhelmed scores of GPS receivers, highlighting the hazard of radio storms on Earth.
- Tech
Powering the Revolution
Sensors and other electronic devices that can scavenge energy could open a new realm for technology.
- Ecosystems
Slime Dwellers
The health of corals, and their adaptability in the face of adversity, may rest largely on the microbes they recruit into a slime that coats their surfaces.
- Tech
Reaching for Rays
Harnessing the sun's rays cheaply and efficiently could address the planet's energy needs.
- Health & Medicine
Dangerous History
The genome of the TB bacterium has small but significant pockets of diversity, giving scientists new targets for preventing and treating the disease.
- Physics
Spinning into Control
High-speed flywheels could replace batteries in hybrid vehicles and help make the electrical grid more reliable.
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Our Microbes, Ourselves
Trillions of microbes live in the human gut and skin, and they may be essential to health.
- Animals
Egg Shell Game
Birds apparently cheat chance when it comes to laying eggs that contain sons or daughters.
- Physics
The Hunt for Antihelium
Scientists have been searching about 30 years for a single nucleus of helium made from antimatter, and although the discovery would imply that whole antimatter galaxies exist, the researchers' time could be running out.
- Math
Sensor Sensibility
Networks of tiny computerized sensors that adjust their function as needed may soon pervade our environment.
- Archaeology
Peru’s Sunny View
Researchers have found the oldest solar observatory in the Americas, a group of 13 towers first used around 300 B.C. to mark the positions of sunrises and sunsets from summer to winter solstice.
- Earth
Flotsam Science
Researchers have harnessed the power of flotsam—floating items as diverse as tennis shoes, tub toys, and hockey gloves—to chart the path and speed of the Pacific Subarctic Gyre, a group of currents in the North Pacific Ocean.
