Feature
- Tech
Artificial Animalcules
Advances that include the first swimming micromachine and novel designs for similar devices are deepening scientists' understanding of the bizarre world of microscale liquids.
- Health & Medicine
Flora Horror
A diarrhea-causing bacterium has developed new resistance to a widely used class of antibiotics and has recently become more transmissible and more deadly.
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Self-Serve Brains
New brain-imaging studies and investigations of certain types of brain damage suggest that the right hemisphere typically coordinates one's sense of being a self, with a body and a set of life experiences distinct from those of other people.
- Astronomy
Blasts from the Past
Gamma-ray bursts may soon surpass quasars and galaxies as the most distant known objects in the universe and are likely to provide a new window on the early universe.
- Earth
A Little Less Green?
Emerging data indicate that use of pyrethroid pesticides, even by home owners, poses significant environmental risks.
- Tech
Microbial Moxie
Microbial fuel cells, which take advantage of the fact that some microbes generate electricity when they break down organic matter, could one day power remote sensors, wastewater-treatment plants, and portable devices.
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- Paleontology
First Steps
Using materials as diverse as lobster eggs, dead birds, and the headless carcass of a rhinoceros, scientists are conducting experiments that scrutinize the first steps of the fossilization process.
- Tech
Is Anybody out There?
To speed the search for extraterrestrial life, researchers are using extreme conditions on Earth to develop a flotilla of detection devices to tease out signs of life in unlikely places.
- Health & Medicine
In Pixels and in Health
By simulating individual cells and their behavior inside the human body using a computer technique called agent-based modeling, scientists are gaining new insight into disease progression.
- Astronomy
Outer Limits
A slew of recently discovered objects at the far reaches of the solar system, including a possible tenth planet, are providing scientists with clues about the origin and evolution of this distant region.
- Animals
The Trouble with Chasing a Bee
Radar has long been able to detect high-flying clouds of insects, but it's taken much longer for scientists to figure out how to track your average bee.
