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
- APOD: 2026 August 10 – Three Galaxy Pairs
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 10 –… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD APOD: 2026 August 10 – Three Galaxy Pairs Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
- APOD: 2026 August 8 – A Messier Moment for Tempel 2
APOD Science APOD APOD: 2026 August 8 – A… Today’s APOD Archive Submissions Index Search Calendar RSS Education About Discuss APOD Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. A Messier
- The July 2005 rainfall-induced landslides in Yangshan (the Yang Mountains) in China
Extreme rainfall in July 2025 triggered numerous landslides and debris flows that killed over 60 people. Between 23 and 29 July 2025, the Yanshan (Yan Mountain) [41.0, 120.0] area of Hebei Province in China suffered extreme rainfall that triggered extensive flooding and landslides. As is so often the case in China, I found it difficult to
- Getting to Know Uranus’s “Breathing” Bow Shock
The ice giant’s rotation causes daily expansion and contraction of the boundary where its magnetic field slows the solar wind.
- 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 …
- What to do when you have too many PhD projects on the go
Nature, Published online: 10 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01681-8By ruthlessly narrowing down his priorities, Zachary Sentell managed to publish several papers in the final year of his PhD and graduate on time.
- I caught my students using AI to cheat in an exam — here’s what universities must do to stamp this out
Nature, Published online: 10 August 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02447-yWithout strong standards and smart oversight, artificial intelligence risks eroding the foundations of higher education.