Feature

  1. Life

    Year in Review: Your body is mostly microbes

    Microbiome results argue for new view of animals as superorganisms.

    By
  2. Science & Society

    Top 25 stories of 2013, from microbes to meteorites

    This year, careful readers may have noticed a steady accumulation of revelations about the bacterial communities that call the human body home.

    By
  3. Science & Society

    Heal thy neighbor

    As antidepressants and other drugs gradually replace psychotherapy in the United States, new forms of the talking cure are growing in popularity in developing countries ravaged by civil war and poverty.

    By
  4. Neuroscience

    Global neuro lab

    With more than 50 million users, the brain-training website Lumosity is giving scientists access to an enormous collection of cognitive performance data. Mining the dataset could be the first step toward a new kind of neuroscience.

    By
  5. Science & Society

    Science slowdown

    The recent federal government shutdown, which furloughed more than 800,000 government workers and may have cost the nation as much as $24 billion, has sent ripples through the nation’s scientific research enterprise.

    By
  6. Neuroscience

    The Inconstant Gardener

    Microglia, the same immune cells that help sculpt the developing brain, may do damage later in life .

    By
  7. Health & Medicine

    Old drug, new tricks

    Metformin, cheap and widely used for diabetes, takes a swipe at cancer.

    By
  8. Health & Medicine

    Waiting to exhale

    Scientists sift through the chemical potpourri that escapes our lungs for new ways to diagnose disease.

    By
  9. Neuroscience

    Mind to motion

    Brain-computer interfaces promise new freedom for the paralyzed and immobile.

    By
  10. Astronomy

    Quiet maximum

    By almost any measure, this solar maximum has been pathetic. No more than 67 sunspots have appeared in a month so far; at the last peak, in 2000, that number was above 120.

    By
  11. Psychology

    The bright side of sadness

    Bad moods can have unappreciated mental upsides.

    By
  12. Astronomy

    Voyager’s view

    Though the 1970s-era space probe has finally slipped into an interstellar realm, in some senses it is still very much within the bounds of the solar system.

    By