Feature

Health & Medicine

Inflammatory Fat

Immune system cells may underlie much of the disease-provoking injury in obese individuals that has been linked to their excess fat.

Computing

Straining for Speed

Hitting fundamental limits on how small they can make certain structures within semiconductor transistors, chip makers are deforming the silicon crystals from which those transistors are made to eke out some extra speed.

Math

Computation’s New Leaf

Plants in which large numbers of simple units interact with one another appear to compute how to coordinate the actions of their cells effectively.

Astronomy

Bare-Naked Galaxies

A decade's worth of observations is spotlighting how the vast sea of gas surrounding a cluster of galaxies can alter the shape of a galaxy plowing through it.