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
- Educators & Teens Get Hands-On With TEMPO Data to Help Investigate Local Air Quality
The NASA Science Activation Program’s Cosmic Storytelling with NASA Data (CosmicDS) project, led by Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, works to bring authentic NASA data into the hands of educators and learners. From July 27–29, 2026, the CosmicDS team partnered with the Smithsonian Institution’s BEST AQI (Breathing Easier: Supporting Teen Air Quality Investigations) project to
- NASA’s SkyFall Helicopters at Work (Artist’s Concept)
Description This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s three SkyFall Mars helicopters collecting data while flying over the surface of the Red Planet. The green frequency waves emanating from the helicopters’ large antennas depict collection of subsurface radar data. The red beams depict collect near-infrared imagery data from regolith (crushed rock and dust) and other surface features.
- Super-Earths May Be Solid Deep Inside Their Mantles
New estimates show that a mineral likely common in these rocky planets’ interiors is resistant to melting, even at high temperatures.
- Fatal landslides in July 2026
In July 2026 I recorded 48 fatal landslides causing 413 fatalities. This year continues to be atypical in terms of the temporal pattern of fatal landslides. This is my regular update for the number of fatal global landslides, focusing on July 2026. As usual, this data has been collected in line with the methodology described
- DNA reveals the hidden past of North America’s bison—and keys to their future
Scientists are racing to conserve what remains of these majestic animals’ genetic diversity
- Adaptive modulation of theta sweeps in the brain’s navigation circuit | Science
Efficient navigation requires prioritizing information from behaviorally relevant locations. In rats, such selective sampling may arise from theta-paced sweeps in grid and place cell populations, which scan nearby space in a left-right alternating …
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 31, August 2026. <br/>
- Liver sinusoidal endothelium mediates systemic clearance of ultrasmall gold nanoparticles through secretion of circulating exosomes
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 31, August 2026. <br/>SignificanceGold nanoparticles hold great promise for biomedical applications. However, most studies only focus on mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS)-mediated clearance, and the role of liver sinusoidal endothelium in nanoparticle processing remains …
- AI agents are checking the scientific literature — and spotting decades-old errors
Nature, Published online: 06 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02235-8The technology is proving adept at finding faults in decades-old papers and reference databases.
- Heat waves have killed millions. Here’s how scientists tally lives lost
Nature, Published online: 06 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02430-7Two very different methods are used to estimate the human toll of heatwaves such as those now hitting parts of Asia and Europe.