Feature
- Neuroscience
Year in Review: Obama unveils brain initiative
In April, the president announced an ambitious plan to reveal the human brain’s secrets.
- Psychology
Year in Review: DSM-5’s controversial debut
The diagnostic manual updates disorder criteria.
- Physics
Year in Review: Below absolute zero, but hot
Lab trickery pushes atoms to a negative temperature.
- Astronomy
Year in Review: Death of a planet hunter
The Kepler space telescope finishes a brilliant career.
- Astronomy
Year in Review: Voyager 1 reaches interstellar space
The planetary probe is the first human-made object to break out of the heliosphere.
- Health & Medicine
Year in Review: Putting kids at risk
U.S. parents increasingly are delaying their children’s vaccination.
- Climate
Year in Review: Carbon dioxide levels pass milestone
Although scientists are confident about humankind’s role in climate change, they still have a lot to learn about the magnitude and timing of future climate shifts.
- Genetics
Year in Review: Caffeine triggers cloning advance
To successfully clone human cells, eggs must be dunked in the stimulant.
- Humans
Year in Review: Language learning starts before birth
Babies seem familiar with vowels and words heard while in the womb.
- Science & Society
Year in Review: High court rules against gene patents
The justices’ decision opens the way for choices in DNA testing.
- Health & Medicine
Year in Review: Sleep clears the cluttered brain
Some forms of brain washing are good, like the thorough hosing the brain gets during sleep.
- Life
Year in Review: A double dose of virus scares
Outbreaks of two deadly viruses captured the world’s attention in 2013, but neither turned into the global pandemic expected to strike one of these years.
