Feature

  1. Tech

    Sparing the rare earths

    Potential shortages of useful metals inspire scientists to seek alternatives for magnet technologies

    By Devin Powell
  2. Materials Science

    Carbon flatland

    Graphene’s two dimensions offer new physics, novel electronics.

    By Alexandra Witze
  3. Humans

    Water’s Edge Ancestors

    Human evolution’s tide may have turned on lake and sea shores.

    By Bruce Bower
  4. Health & Medicine

    One problem, many paths

    Autism’s many genetic players may act through common networks.

    By Laura Sanders
  5. Humans

    Crime’s digital past

    Computer science makes history, gleaning new findings from centuries' worth of transcripts from a Victorian-era courthouse.

    By Bruce Bower
  6. Space

    Lighting the universe

    Scientists rethink what the first stars were like and how they formed.

    By Ron Cowen
  7. Health & Medicine

    Residents of the brain

    It's a zoo in there: Scientists turn up startling diversity among neurons.

    By Laura Sanders
  8. Health & Medicine

    The Power of D

    Sunshine vitamin’s potential health benefits stir up, split scientists.

    By Nathan Seppa
  9. Humans

    Collapsing Coastlines

    How Arctic shores are pulled a-sea 

    By Daniel Strain

  10. Evolution’s Wedges

    Finding the genes that drive one species into two.

    By Daniel Strain
  11. Earth

    Death of a Continent, Birth of an Ocean

    Africa’s Afar region gives glimpses of geology in action.

    By Alexandra Witze
  12. Health & Medicine

    Mind-Controlled

    Linking brain and computer may soon lead to practical prosthetics for daily life.

    By Susan Gaidos