Feature

  1. Evolution’s Wedges

    Finding the genes that drive one species into two.

    By Daniel Strain
  2. Earth

    Death of a Continent, Birth of an Ocean

    Africa’s Afar region gives glimpses of geology in action.

    By Alexandra Witze
  3. Health & Medicine

    Mind-Controlled

    Linking brain and computer may soon lead to practical prosthetics for daily life.

    By Susan Gaidos
  4. Health & Medicine

    Inside Job

    Teams of microbes pull strings in the human body.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  5. Humans

    Counterfeit Crackdown

    New scientific tools help tell fake meds from the real thing.

    By Rachel Ehrenberg
  6. Space

    Good-bye Shuttle

    Looking back at the space plane’s scientific legacy

    By Alexandra Witze
  7. Humans

    Simple Heresy

    Rules of thumb challenge complex financial analyses 

    By Bruce Bower
  8. Health & Medicine

    Healthy Aging in a Pill

    To extend life span, scientists envision a drug that mimics the benefits of a near-starvation diet.

    By Laura Beil
  9. Astronomy

    Stellar oddballs

    Kepler spacecraft finds much more than exoplanets.

    By Charles Petit

  10. Into orbit

    MESSENGER pays a yearlong visit to Mercury.

    By Ron Cowen

  11. Dawn of the Dinosaurs

    Paleontologists probe the majestic reptiles’ origin and rise.

    By Alexandra Witze
  12. Health & Medicine

    Going Under

    While every anesthetic drug has its own effect, scientists know little about how the various versions work on the brain to transport patients from normal waking awareness to dreamless nothingness.

    By Susan Gaidos