Imagining…
Where Science Meets Creative Writing
Find a story within the topics above
How can we look at fossils and understand what creatures roamed the Earth millions of years ago?
How can we predict the behavior of materials deep within planetary interiors?
How can we reverse humanity’s impact on the global climate?
How can we predict habitats for life on other planets?
Doing impactful, innovative research requires training our brain to imagine the elusive unknown, even when bounded by scientific evidence. Now, more than ever in the history of human civilization, there is a pressing need to exercise our imagination muscles. Writing scientific fiction while accounting for the real science is a powerful way to do just that—to learn what is possible, what is probable, how we can change the future, and what our responsibility is to the future generation of our species.
Most Recent Stories
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Progress Without Morals
A scientist is trying to harness microbial properties to develop a fantastic tool. He believes he can; but should he?
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For Today’s Inspiration
- APOD: 29 October 2026 – The Horns of Venus
APOD Science APOD APOD: 29 October 2026 – The… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. The Horns
- Arnab Strikes India
The first named storm of the North Indian Ocean’s cyclone season made landfall along the coast of Andhra Pradesh.
- Eaton Wildfire Exposed Millions to a “Cocktail of Chemicals”
Compared to a nearby wildfire that primarily burned vegetation, the smoke plume from the urban Eaton Fire contained 3 times as much arsenic and 50 times as much lead.
- Trump to Ease Methane Rules for Oil and Gas Wells
The Trump administration has announced plans to terminate some methane emissions restrictions for oil and gas companies, rolling back rules set by the Biden administration in 2024.
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 43, October 2026. <br/>
- A functional two-pore-domain K+ channel from a large DNA virus
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 43, October 2026. <br/>SignificanceWhile the evolutionary history of the pore and its sensor domains in modern K+channels can be traced back to prokaryotes, the origin of a tandem architecture remains unknown; such structures do not occur in bacteria. Here, we highlight a …
- Narrow carbon pentaheptite nanoribbon as a covalent metal
Nature, Published online: 28 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11202-2Planar carbon pentaheptite nanoribbons are synthesized by laterally fusing polypentalene chains transformed from pre-synthesized polycyclooctadiene chains, suggesting a possible route towards carbon quantum wires.
- Tandem repeat variation shapes immune cell type-specific gene expression
Nature, Published online: 28 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10438-2Whole-genome sequencing and cell-level gene expression measurements show that length variation in tandem repeats in the human genome contributes to cell type-specific differences in gene regulation and expression, as well as the architecture of complex traits.