Feature
- Tech
Mind-Expanding Machines
Researchers have designed computer systems aimed at amplifying human thought and perception, such as a new type of cockpit display for aircraft pilots that exploits the power of peripheral vision.
- Health & Medicine
Predicting Prostate Cancer’s Moves
To guide treatment decisions in individual cases of prostate cancer, medical researchers are using gene-expression profiling and other novel techniques to develop better predictive markers of how a given tumor will behave.
- Earth
On Shifting Ground
In earthquake-prone areas of the United States and elsewhere in the world, debates go on over whether—and how much—to reinforce buildings.
- Humans
In Search of a Scientific Revolution
A year after self-publishing a best-selling book in which he proposes a new framework for doing science, Stephen Wolfram is taking new steps to transform science.
- Health & Medicine
Blood Sugar Fix
A new class of experimental drugs that mimic the actions of the hormone glucagon-like peptide 1 shows benefits against type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes.
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Risky Business
The science of decision making grapples with sex, race, and power.
- Earth
High-Flying Science, with Strings Attached
In the hands of scientists, kites do serious data gathering.
- Materials Science
Layered Approach
A decade-old method for creating thin coatings is poised to move from the lab to countless low- and high-tech products.
- Plants
Emergency Gardening
High-tech tissue culture is helping some ultrarare plants finally have sprouts of their own.
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Old Worms, New Aging Genes
The genes and hormonal signals that regulate life span in worms may do the same in people.
- Earth
Air Sickness
Studies have begun showing subtle but substantial harmful effects in outwardly healthy people who regularly breathe hazy air.
- Earth
Catch Zero
It generally has taken less than a generation for modern, industrial-scale fishing, once deployed in a new plot of ocean, to exhaust the vast majority of the sea’s edible bounty and leave behind decimated ecosystems and depleted economic opportunities.
