Feature
- Earth
Oceans Aswirl
Whirls of ocean water up to hundreds of kilometers across create biological oases, transport heat from tropical climes to cooler latitudes, and affect everything from offshore oil platforms to long-distance yacht races.
- Math
If It Looks Like a Sphere…
A Russian mathematician has proposed a proof of the Poincaré conjecture, a question about the shapes of three-dimensional spaces.
- Chemistry
Danger Detection
Analytical chemists are exploring ways to improve chemical and biological weapons detection.
- Health & Medicine
Herbal Lottery
Many herbal-product makers aren't maintaining adequate quality control, prompting the Food and Drug Administration to propose rules that mandate good manufacturing practices.
- Physics
Reflections on Art
By dissecting famous paintings in new ways, scientists are testing the veracity of artist David Hockney's controversial theory that some masters of Renaissance art secretly used optical projection devices.
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Gut Check
The normal microbial inhabitants of our intestines do a lot for their host.
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Repeat After Me
New research suggests that the ability to infer the thoughts and feelings of others grows out of a capacity for imitation exhibited by human infants and perhaps by other animals, as well.
- Astronomy
Gorgeous Gas
Beyond their undeniable beauty, images of nearby, starlit clouds of gas and dust, known as HeII nebulae, may reveal properties of the very first stars in the universe.
- Earth
Patterns from Nowhere
Scientists are developing geophysical models that may explain the polygonal patterns that appear in and on the ground in remote regions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and possibly the surface of Mars.
- 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.
