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
- NASA to Conduct Low-Altitude Flights Over Texas Farmland
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on Oct. 15, 2026, and has been updated to correct the location of the flights. A NASA Dynamic Aviation A200 aircraft will conduct low-flying research flights over farmland near Amarillo, Texas, from Thursday, Oct. 22, through Monday, Nov. 9. These flights will measure gaseous and particulate emissions from
- NASA’s SR-1 Freedom Advances with Progress on Nuclear Power Module
Destined for Mars and beyond, NASA’s Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom will be humanity’s first fission-powered spacecraft to travel outside Earth’s orbit. Announced during NASA’s “Ignition” event, this mission will demonstrate nuclear electric propulsion in deep space, and progress is underway on its key element: the nuclear power module. To expedite development of the spacecraft, NASA
- Using Machine Learning Techniques for Polar Vortex Predictions
A new model accurately reproduces aspects of polar vortex behavior, extracting indicators of imminent vortex collapse and accompanying frigid weather in North America and Europe.
- White Dwarf Spotted Devouring the Planet It Birthed
Exotic chemical elements in the atmosphere of a dead star hint at the presence of a planet that formed after the star’s death—the first such second-generation planet ever seen.
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 41, October 2026. <br/>
- Interventions to mitigate post-infection morbidity: Management insights from simple models
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 41, October 2026. <br/>SignificanceMany infectious diseases cause morbidity after recovery. However, management typically focuses on acute burden. Moving beyond this, we use models to examine interactions between interventions and post-infection effects. We show that reductions …
- It’s time to teach peer review as a core research skill
Nature, Published online: 20 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03200-1Preprint journal clubs offer a scalable way to make peer-review training a routine part of scientific education.
- Vast new fossil record challenges story of Earth’s ‘big five’ mass extinctions
Nature, Published online: 20 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03316-4An artificial-intelligence model trained on nearly four million fossils suggests that three of the extinction events might have happened more gradually than previously thought.