Feature
- Earth
Buying time when quakes hit
On the West Coast, geologists are developing an earthquake warning system that can provide seconds of notice before destructive shaking begins. The system could be ready before the next big quake hits.
- Cosmology
Cosmic question mark
Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate disagree by about 10 percent. One of the methods may be flawed. Or it could be that a hitherto unobserved phenomenon is at work.
- Health & Medicine
Sudden death
Cardiologists disagree on whether electrocardiograms should be used to screen student athletes for a rare heart condition that can cause them to die suddenly and without warning.
- Psychology
The addiction paradox
Addiction is often seen as a chronic disease that requires maintenance treatment even after years of sobriety. But even without help, most addicts eventually can quit for good.
- Climate
Cloudy forecast
Over decades climatologists have grown more confident in their projections of the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But whether shifts in cloudiness will amplify global warming continues to vex researchers.
- Quantum Physics
Quantum timekeeping
Recent advances in controlling the quantum behavior of particles have inspired physicists to dream of a global clock that would tell the same time everywhere. It would be hundreds of times as accurate as current atomic clocks.
- Tech
Creature power
Biological fuel cells that generate electricity by harnessing sugars and oxygen in the body may one day power implanted devices in humans and other animals.
- Neuroscience
Cataloging the connections
Though a complete map of the brain’s connections is many years away, the mathematical theory of networks can help fill in some of the blank spots.
- Neuroscience
Brain shot
Deciphering how the brain’s circuitry produces thought and behavior is an ambitious and enticing goal on the scale of the Apollo Program or the Human Genome Project. But the neuroscientists involved in a new federal effort have many challenges ahead.
- Climate
Grape expectations
Global warming has delivered long, warm growing seasons and blockbuster vintages to the world’s great wine regions. But by mid-century, excessive heat will push premium wine-making into new territory.
- Earth
Life’s early traces
Tiny tufts, rolls and crinkles in 3.5-billion-year-old rocks add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that cellular life got a relatively quick start on Earth.
- Earth
The long and winding Colorado
The history of the West’s iconic river is written in the dramatic landscapes it has shaped. How to interpret that chronicle has become a contentious issue among geologists.
