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 Outlines Preliminary Artemis III Mission Plans
NASA is moving quickly to define next year’s Artemis III mission in Earth orbit, a crewed flight that will test rendezvous and docking capabilities between the agency’s Orion spacecraft and commercial landers from Blue Origin and SpaceX. Since a February announcement adding an Artemis mission ahead of crewed landing missions to the Moon’s South Pole region,
- Studying Pneumonia in Space for Heart Health on Earth
Expedition 74 astronauts aboard the International Space Station are uncovering how bacteria that causes pneumonia can lead to long-term damage in the heart. Researchers are leveraging the space environment to observe how stem cell derived heart tissues respond to bacterial infections, to discover new methods to manage cardiovascular health and infectious diseases. In space, bacteria
- Sand Demand Outpaces Sustainable Extraction
Demand for sand in the building sector is expected to rise 45% by the year 2060, outpacing current efforts to sustainably harvest it.
- Tree Lines Are Migrating. Some Up, Some Down.
Between 2000 and 2020, 42% of tree lines around the world crept upward, largely because of climate change. But 25% moved downhill, seemingly because of factors such as land use changes and wildfires.
- In the remote Amazon, locals are saving a giant fish—and helping their villages
Project has brought income and electricity while protecting wide swaths of tropical forest
- Magic mushroom compound shows promise against cocaine addiction
Small study that prioritized Black and low-income participants yields “remarkable” results
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. <br/>
- Evaluating the statistical realism of LLM-generated social science data
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. <br/>SignificanceLarge language models (LLMs) enable the generation of data that could potentially be analyzed for social research. While the need for assessing the validity of such AI-generated data is widely recognized, we do not yet have a coherent …
- Old antibiotics are being revived to fight new threats
Nature, Published online: 13 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01379-xThe last antimicrobial peptide was developed decades ago. Now, drug-resistant bacteria are forcing scientists to take a fresh look at this class of antibiotic.
- A synaptic locus of song learning
Nature, Published online: 13 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10510-xCombining a computational framework and optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulations within and downstream of the cortico-basal ganglia circuit identifies the specific cortico-basal ganglia synapses that drive the acquisition and expression of rapid vocal changes during juvenile song learning.