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-Supported Space Tech Advances Earthly Construction
An innovative 3D printing process that advanced NASA’s approach to outfitting a lunar habitat is making buildings on Earth beautiful, efficient, and strong. Instead of building structures layer by layer, Branch Technology Inc. of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has developed a process the company calls Freeform 3D Printing, which creates shapes with lightweight lattice structures that can be filled or covered. The company uses the technique to manufacture
- Rise Goes to Washington
“Rise,” the Artemis II zero gravity indicator, is seen sitting on the dais as NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen speak with congressional staff, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Washington. NASA’s Artemis II mission took Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a nearly 10-day
- Astronomers Find 10,000 Potential New Exoplanets
That’s more than were detected in the entirety of NASA’s Kepler mission and its follow-on K2 and more than double the existing planet candidates from TESS that await confirmation.
- Low Snow in Eurasia Linked to Wildfires in California
Scientists found that low autumn snow levels in western Eurasia are associated with dry, warm winters in California, increasing the Golden State’s wildfire risk.
- 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 …
- An X-linked long non-coding RNA, PTCHD1-AS, and the core features of autism
Nature, Published online: 13 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10515-6PTCHD1-AS, which encodes a long non-coding RNA, is associated with the aetiology of autism spectrum disorder in humans through striatal molecular and circuit-level dysregulation.
- Street sellers and private physicians fuel antibiotic overuse
Nature, Published online: 13 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01374-2Limited access to medical professionals and irresponsible prescribing practices are contributing to antimicrobial resistance in low-resource settings.