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
- Smoke Shrouds Northern Thailand
Seasonal fires have darkened skies over Southeast Asia.
- NASA SBIR/STTR Phase I and II BAA, 2026 Appendix A and B are now live! Offers due May 21, 2026, 5:00PM EDT
https://www.nasa.gov/sbir_sttr/nasa-sbir-sttr-program-program-year-2026-information-hub
- Temperatures in Nearly All Major U.S. Cities Have Warmed Since First Earth Day
After more than half a century of Earth Days, one planetary challenge—climate change—threatens our planet more than ever. In 1970, the year Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisc., organized the first Earth Day events, the annual average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 326 parts per million. In 2025, it was 31% higher, at 427 parts per million.
- Location, Location, Location: The “Where” of Reforestation May Matter More Than the Extent
A new study finds that focusing reforestation efforts in strategic locations, such as the tropics, can accomplish global cooling levels comparable to less strategic reforestation efforts covering twice as much area.
- Grand Canyon’s origin resolved? Ancient lake’s flood may have etched famed gorge
Mineral grains show Colorado River filled a basin at the canyon’s head millions of years ago
- As helium-3 runs scarce, researchers seek new ways to chill quantum computers
Tight supplies of precious isotope are driving new approaches to ultracold tech
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 16, April 2026. <br/>
- Sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics and Koopman operators with Shallow Recurrent Decoder Networks
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 16, April 2026. <br/>SignificanceWe present sparse identification of nonlinear dynamics with shallow recurrent decoders (SINDy-SHRED), which jointly solves the sensing, model reduction and model identification problem with simple implementation, efficient computation, and …
- Transposable elements are driving rapid adaptation of Enterococcus faecium
Nature, Published online: 22 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10373-2Over three decades, rapid expansion of the transposable element ISL3 has reshaped Enterococcus faecium, which helps to explain this pathogen’s growing clinical threat.
- Punctuated decline of human cooperation
Nature, Published online: 22 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10380-3Cooperation in group lending declines over time due to shifting behavioural motivations, briefly rebounds after loan restarts, then declines faster again, revealing systematic deviations from rational behaviour driving long-term cooperation loss.