Imagining…
Where Science Meets Creative Writing
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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.
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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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The Zooniverse, a NASA grantee that runs the world’s largest platform for online people-powered research, has reached an extraordinary milestone: 1 billion classifications contributed by volunteers around the world. This milestone is a celebration of everyone who has marked a dip in a light curve, confirmed the presence of a moving object in a short
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After a typhoon surprised a research cruise, scientists took advantage of the unique sampling opportunity to reveal rapid changes in bacterioplankton communities and biogeochemical cycling.
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- Prioritizing a vital river’s restoration | Science
HomeScienceVol. 393, No. 6807Prioritizing a vital river’s restorationBack To Vol. 393, No. 6807 Full accessLetter Share on Prioritizing a vital river’s restorationZhi-Tao Wang and Ping ZhuangAuthors Info & AffiliationsScience9 Jul 2026Vol 393, Issue 6807pp. 153-154DOI: 10.1126/science.aei3599 PREVIOUS ARTICLEDoes AI work for us, or do we work for AI?PreviousNEXT ARTICLEUS military expansion and d…
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. <br/>
- Improving cell-free metabolism through direct integration of artificial respiratory chains
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 27, July 2026. <br/>SignificanceA key goal of bottom–up synthetic biology is to construct cell-free systems with life-like, autonomous, and self-sustaining capabilities. Achieving this requires an efficient and controllable energy supply. In this work, we integrate a custom-…
- Lab-grown sperm: scientists inch closer to fertility breakthrough
Nature, Published online: 10 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02172-6Sci-fi procedure creates immature human sperm from stem cells, nurturing them on a mouse’s kidney.
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Nature, Published online: 10 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02167-3Central conclusions rarely change when biomedical preprints go on to be published in journals.