Feature
- Tech
Building a Better Shuttle
Researchers are working on both more heat-tolerant materials and totally new designs for vehicles that might ultimately replace the space shuttle.
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After West Nile Virus
As biologists try to estimate the impact of West Nile virus on wildlife, it's not the famously susceptible crows that are causing alarm but much rarer species.
- Computing
Pictures Only a Computer Could Love
New, unconventional lenses shape scenes into pictures for computers, not people, so that computer-equipped microscopes, cameras, and other optical devices can see more with less.
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- Tech
Refueling Rockets
Hybrid-rocket fuels—part solid, part liquid—have been around for a half-century, and they may just now be taking off.
- Health & Medicine
More than a Kick
Nicotine ramps up activity throughout the body, making the drug a suspect in many tobacco-related ailments.
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Blood Work
Knowing the identity of every protein in the liquid portion of blood could offer new ways to detect—or even treat and prevent—many diseases.
- Tech
On the Rebound
When electronically reversed in time, acoustic echoes can zero in on a spot in space, focusing sound energy so that it may zap tumors, detect submarines, or transmit private and secure information.
- Health & Medicine
When Drinking Helps
Sometimes a nip of alcohol can indeed prove therapeutic, though usually not until middle age.
- Ecosystems
Spring Forward
Scientists who study biological responses to seasonal and climatic changes have noted that the annual cycles for many organisms are beginning earlier on average, as global temperatures rise.
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Pass the Genes, Please
Gene swapping muddles the history of microbes.
