Feature
- Astronomy
Something New on the Sun
The sharpest visible-light images of the sun ever recorded are revealing puzzling, new features of sunspots, the dark regions where the sun's powerful magnetic field is concentrated.
- Tech
Hot Flashes, Cold Cuts
By obliterating matter in a never-before-seen way, a new breed of lasers cuts everything from eyeballs to diamonds with unprecedented precision.
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Sizing Up the Brain
Genetic mutations that produce small brains provide insight into the formation and evolution of the human brain.
- Astronomy
Jet Astronomy
For the first time, scientists have traced the slowing and dimming of X-ray-emitting jets from a black hole.
- Health & Medicine
Old Drug, New Uses?
A hormone called erythropoietin, long used to treat anemia, also seems to protect against nerve damage and holds promise as a new therapy for stroke and spinal cord injury.
- Earth
Once Upon a Lake
As Earth warmed at the end of the last ice age, the immense volumes of fresh water that occasionally and catastrophically spilled from Lake Agassiz—the long-defunct lake that formed as the ice sheet smothering Canada melted—may have caused global climate change and sudden rises in sea level.
- Math
Election Selection
By ignoring how voters might rank all the candidates in an election, the plurality system opens the floodgates to unsettling, paradoxical results when there are three or more candidates.
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- Math
Prime Pursuit
A novel approach for identifying prime numbers provides a long-sought improvement in the theoretical efficiency of prime-detecting algorithms.
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Spreading Consciousness
A reanalysis of brain-imaging data links conscious visual experience to activity patterns throughout the brain, challenging the popular view that specific brain areas coordinate this mental state.
- Earth
Shifting Sands
Sand dunes can provide scientists with clues about ancient patterns of wind and precipitation.
- Chemistry
Hydrogen: The Next Generation
Researchers are looking for more sustainable ways to generate hydrogen, which burns cleanly but is typically made from fossil fuel.
