Feature
- Tech
Eau, Brother!
The combination of advanced sensor materials and powerful computer chips promises devices that can sense threats ranging from bacteria in food to explosives in land mines.
- Physics
Hunting for Higher Dimensions
Inspired by recent theoretical insights, physicists at accelerators and gravitational laboratories are searching for clues to dimensions beyond the four dimensions of space-time.
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Keeping Bugs from Pumping Drugs
Researchers hope that attacking the machinery some microbes use to pump antimicrobial agents out of their cells may help deal with the increasing problem of drug resistance.
- Astronomy
Revved-Up Universe
Astronomers are busy testing the seemingly bizarre notion that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
- Animals
When Ants Squeak
In the past 20 years, researchers studying sound communication in ants have discovered a sort of ant-ernet, zinging with messages about lost relatives, great food, free rides for hitchhikers, caterpillars in search of ant partners, and impending doom.
- Chemistry
Questions of Origin
Two new studies renew controversy about the authenticity of a map that may be the first depiction of North America.
- Materials Science
Vision Quest
Increasing numbers of people with less-than-perfect vision can now wear contact lenses, thanks to innovations in lens design and materials.
- Chemistry
Tums of the Sea
Ocean scientists question whether the seas can handle rising carbon dioxide concentrations.
- Math
Logic in the Blocks
Sliding-block puzzles can be surprisingly difficult to solve and can even serve as theoretical models of computation.
- Materials Science
Gems of War
While international bodies grapple with regulatory schemes to stem the diamond trade that funds ongoing civil conflicts in African countries, scientists are attempting to develop methods for identifying gems from conflict zones.
- Tech
Shrinking toward the Ultimate Transistor
Scientists demonstrate transistor action in an atom—or two.
- Health & Medicine
Viral Survivor
Epstein-Barr virus, the cause of diseases ranging from mononucleosis to several kinds of cancer, has begun to reveal how it enters human cells and protects itself from the immune system.
