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  1. Neuroscience

    Music soothes the aging brain in film ‘Alive Inside’

    A social worker highlighted in a new documentary goes on a quest to bring tunes to nursing homes.

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  2. Psychology

    Feedback

    Readers way in on slacktivism, cockroaches, dinosaur tracks and more.

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  3. Astronomy

    The craziest NASA mission ever proposed

    In this issue, Meghan Rosen provides an in-depth report on that mission, but without the erroneous conclusion that the Asteroid Redirect Mission has much to do with asteroid defense.

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  4. Planetary Science

    NASA bets on asteroid mission as best path to Mars

    NASA wants to bag an asteroid using robotic arms or an enormous sack and place the rock in the moon’s orbit for study. This may keep astronauts working but not, as NASA claims, get them Mars-ready.

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  5. Oceans

    Mercury at ocean surface may have tripled since preindustrial times

    Questions remain over dangers of toxic metal in environment.

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  6. Psychology

    Bilingual homes may give babies a learning lift

    Hearing two languages during the first six months of life linked to an early mental advantage.

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  7. Computing

    Brain-inspired computer chip mimics 1 million neurons

    By processing data in parallel, computer chips modeled after the human brain could perform certain tasks, such as pattern recognition, faster and more energy-efficiently than traditional computers.

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  8. Animals

    Here’s your chance to see the last passenger pigeon

    On display for the 100th anniversary of her species’ extinction, the final passenger pigeon specimen looks pretty good.

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  9. Earth

    Cloud seeding fueled fire about weather modification

    Experiments in 1964 resulted in “exploding” clouds.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    New tests screen for lethal prion disease

    Urine and nasal swabs can detect small amounts of the abnormal prions that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

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  11. Tech

    Robots start flat, then pop into shape and crawl

    The machines use heated hinges to transform into shape and crawl around.

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  12. Planetary Science

    Rosetta spacecraft confabs with a comet

    After a 10-year chase, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has met up with comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

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