An introduction to the special section on lasers. (p. 18)

The history of the laser: An idea that began with Albert Einstein inspired a race to create a special beam of light that has since infiltrated numerous aspects of everyday life. (p. 18)

Laser physicists have set their sights on new types of waves — manufacturing beams of sound, creating plasma swells and looking for ripples in spacetime. (p. 28)

(p. 4)

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Creatures living deep in the Mediterranean without oxygen would be a remarkable first, biologists say. (p. 5)

High-speed video reveals the aerodynamics behind the insects’ maneuverability. (p. 8)

Though locals knew of it, the 2-meter cousin to Komodo dragons had escaped scientific description. (p. 8)

Physicists propose a way that cloud particles can electrify themselves. (p. 9)

The famous fragment of Mars, once proposed to hold signs of extraterrestrial life, is still pretty old. But the rock appears to have formed about 400 million years later than earlier analyses indicated. (p. 10)

President Obama offers a new plan that would send humans to orbit Mars during the mid-2030s. (p. 10)

Researchers have found the closest brown dwarf to Earth and the coolest yet seen, raising the possibility that the nearest starlike body to the solar system may be a brown dwarf rather than a star. (p. 11)

Reversed orbits among ‘hot Jupiters’ decreases chance of Earthlike neighbors. (p. 11)

Firefighters and emergency medical teams continue to have breathing problems years after the 2001 terrorist attack. (p. 12)

Animal study finds that the pancreas can spontaneously regenerate beta cells. (p. 12)

Gut microbes in Japanese people may have borrowed genes for breaking down nori from marine bacteria. (p. 13)

A new analysis of fossil hobbits’ limb bones links them to much earlier hominids, and immediately attracts criticism. (p. 14)

Partial skeletons may represent a new hominid species with implications for Homo origins, one researcher claims. But many of his peers disagree. (p. 14)

An analysis of a 6-million-year-old bone indicates that a humanlike grasp evolved among some of the earliest hominids. (p. 15)

Genetic analysis puts garment origin at 190,000 years ago. (p. 15)

A new technique transplants healthy nuclear DNA of cells carrying mutated mitochondria. (p. 16)

A new digital atlas could reveal how 100,000 neurons work together. (p. 16)

Equations explain why winding fibers together does the job, no matter what they’re made of. (p. 17)

Letters for May 8, 2010 (p. 32)

Science News reporter Ron Cowen's Q&A with Nobel laureate and laser-technology pioneer Charles Townes. (p. 36)