Feature
- Chemistry
Plastic Electric
Scientists are finding new ways to improve the molecular order and electrical conductivity of a commercially important conducting plastic.
- Earth
The Fires Below
Underground coal fires help shape the landscape on many scales and in many ways, some transient and some long-lasting.
- Health & Medicine
Unproven Elixir
For aging men with low testosterone, hormone replacement may stall or counteract some common declines that come with age, but it'll take years to determine whether the treatment is doing most men more good than harm.
- Plants
Any Hope for Old Chestnuts?
Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of chestnut blight in the United States, but enthusiasts still haven't given up hope of restoring American chestnut forests.
- Computing
Minding Your Business
By means of novel sensors and mathematical models, scientists are teaching the basics of human social interactions to computers, which should ease the ever-expanding collaboration between people and machines.
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A Rocky Start
A new origin-of-life theory holds that life began within the confines of iron sulfide rocks surrounding hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom.
- Earth
Eye of the Tiger
Recent research has upended a 130-year-old, previously unchallenged theory about how the semiprecious stone called tiger's-eye is formed.
- Tech
Digital Cells
Researchers are gearing up to create cells with computer programs hardwired into the DNA.
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Words Get in the Way
New studies explore people's tendency to have trouble recalling faces or other hard-to-describe perceptions after giving verbal accounts of them, with an eye toward improving police interviewing techniques with crime eyewitnesses.
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Happy Anniversary
In the 50 years since the discovery of DNA's double helix structure, scientists have developed striking new ways to visualize the molecule.
- Anthropology
The Stone Masters
Investigations of modern-day expert and novice craftsmen of stone tools and decorative stone beads offer insights into the making of stone implements thousands and perhaps even millions of years ago.
- Ecosystems
Cultivating Weeds
Some formerly mild-mannered plants turn into horticultural bullies when planted far outside their native range.
