Feature
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- Earth
Electronic Jetsam
Oceanographers are developing and deploying a variety of seafaring probes—including drifters, gliders, and scientific torpedoes—that will enable them to explore and monitor the ocean remotely.
- Earth
Why the Mercury Falls
Certain pollutants can foster the localized fallout of mercury, a toxic heavy metal, from the atmosphere.
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Raising Trust
Some forager groups may nurture a sharing sense in their offspring.
- Health & Medicine
Getting the Bugs Out of Blood
Researchers are developing methods for inactivating all sorts of pathogens that could be found in blood, including West Nile virus, an emerging infection recently brought to the United States from Africa.
- Astronomy
Planet Formation on the Fast Track
New computer simulations suggest that planets as massive as Jupiter may have formed in only a few hundred years rather than several million years, as the leading theory of planet formation requires.
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- Chemistry
Delivering the Goods
Experimental gene-delivery therapies generally use viruses to shuttle genetic material into cells, but some researchers are devising ways to avoid using the sometimes-risky viruses.
- Anthropology
Southern Reindeer Folk
Western scientists make their first expeditions to Mongolia's Tsaatan people, herders who preserve the old ways at the southernmost rim of reindeer territory.
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- Animals
Camelid Comeback
The future of vicuñas in South America and wild camels in Asia hinges on decisions being made now about their management.
- Tech
A Shot in the Light
Bullet replicas that look on a microscopic level like they've been fired from a gun—even though they haven't—enable forensics specialists to fine-tune as never before instruments to automatically match bullets from crime scenes.
