Feature
- Earth
Avalanche!
Laboratory studies of how snow crystals change shape under fluctuating environmental conditions and computer analyses that match the patterns of past avalanches with detailed meteorological data are helping scientists uncover the secrets of avalanches.
- Health & Medicine
Tracking Tumors
Researchers are trying to visualize molecular and cellular changes as a cancer responds to therapy in order to predict whether treatments are effective sooner than it's currently possible to determine.
- Materials Science
Materials Take Wing
Materials scientists are finding new uses for the billions of pounds of feathers produced each year by the poultry industry.
- Astronomy
The Milky Way’s Middle
Sensitive X-ray, infrared, and radio telescopes are now providing an extraordinarily clear view of the dust-shrouded center of our galaxy.
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- Anthropology
A Fair Share of the Pie
A cross-cultural project suggests that people everywhere divvy up food and make other economic deals based on social concepts of fairness, not individual self-interest.
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Meeting Danielle the Tarantula
Insect zoos have no lions, tigers, or bears but can give plenty of thrills, courtesy of tarantulas, giant beetles, and exotic grasshoppers.
- Physics
Anatomy of a Lightning Ball
Metallic fuzz, acid droplets, or other fairy dust may conjure up ball lightning (with video clips).
- Earth
It’s a Rough World
Scientists are using fractals, mathematical forms that can describe objects with fractional dimensions, to model phenomena such as wildfire propagation and the spread of toxic fluids through rocks and soil.
- Health & Medicine
Germs That Do a Body Good
Research on probiotic bacteria—living microbes that confer health benefits when introduced into the body—offers growing medical promise.
- Health & Medicine
The Persistent Problem of Cystic Fibrosis
Ten years after the discovery of the gene that, when mutated, causes cystic fibrosis, researchers are still struggling to understand why deadly lung infections are so common among people with the disease.
- Computing
Calculating Cartoons
Thanks to sophisticated computer simulations of the laws of physics, spectacular special effects—plus a zoo of strange but real-looking creatures—increasingly enliven movie screens and computer-game consoles.
