Feature
- Earth
New fascination with Earth’s ‘Boring Billion’
The Mesoproterozoic era, known as the boring billion, had very low oxygen, but it set the stage for the evolution of animals.
- Animals
Slow, cold reptiles may breathe like energetic birds
Finding birdlike air patterns in lungs of crocodilians and in more distantly related lizards raises the possibility that one-way airflow evolved far earlier than birds themselves did.
- Chemistry
Nanoparticles in foods raise safety questions
As scientists cook up ways to improve palatability and even make foods healthier, some are considering the potential health risks of tiny additives.
- Science & Society
Special Report: Gravity’s Century
After years of pondering the interplay of space, time, matter and gravity, Einstein produced, in a single month, an utter transformation of science’s conception of the cosmos: the general theory of relativity.
