Feature

  1. Space

    Good-bye Shuttle

    Looking back at the space plane’s scientific legacy

    By Alexandra Witze
  2. Humans

    Simple Heresy

    Rules of thumb challenge complex financial analyses 

    By Bruce Bower
  3. Health & Medicine

    Healthy Aging in a Pill

    To extend life span, scientists envision a drug that mimics the benefits of a near-starvation diet.

    By Laura Beil
  4. Astronomy

    Stellar oddballs

    Kepler spacecraft finds much more than exoplanets.

    By Charles Petit

  5. Into orbit

    MESSENGER pays a yearlong visit to Mercury.

    By Ron Cowen

  6. Dawn of the Dinosaurs

    Paleontologists probe the majestic reptiles’ origin and rise.

    By Alexandra Witze
  7. Health & Medicine

    Going Under

    While every anesthetic drug has its own effect, scientists know little about how the various versions work on the brain to transport patients from normal waking awareness to dreamless nothingness.

    By Susan Gaidos

  8. Yawn

    Latest research awakens debate over why people can’t keep their mouths closed.

    By Laura Sanders

  9. Atomic Anatomy

    A century ago, Ernest Rutherford inaugurated the nuclear age.

    By Tom Siegfried

  10. Moved by Light

    Lasers push everyday objects into the quantum world.

    By Devin Powell

  11. Crushing Cancer’s Defenses

    Vaccine approval offers hope while other armies muster.

    By Daniel Strain

  12. Cosmic Questions additional references

    Books: Brian Green. The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos. Knopf 2011. Read the review. Marcia Bartusiak. The Day We Found the Universe. Pantheon 2009. Read the review. Richard Panek. The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Energy, Dark Matter and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt […]

    By Science News