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Preparing for the Next Step in Manned Spaceflight

NASA prepares to send humans into deep space

How Do Rockets Ignite Their Engines in Space Without Oxygen and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

In Portrait of Nan, Wood highlighted his sister’s femininity.

Meet Grant Wood’s Sister, the Woman Made Famous by “American Gothic”

The painter gave his sibling Nan a makeover in his alluring portrait of her

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The Pay Phone: A New Poem by Joshua Mehigan

A new poem by Joshua Mehigan

Ozcan (in his UCLA lab) started a company, Holomic, to market microscope-outfitted smartphones, which he calls “a telemedicine tool” for improving health care in the developing world.

Inside the Technology That Can Turn Your Smartphone into a Personal Doctor

The fantastic tricorder device that “Bones” used to scan aliens on “Star Trek” is nearly at hand—in your cellphone

Why Do We Love R2-D2 and Not C-3PO?

With its stubby cylindrical body and playful whistles and beeps, the lovable Star Wars’ robot R2-D2 is just the right mix of man and machine

Life in the Cosmos

Sara Seager’s Tenacious Drive to Discover Another Earth

Planetary scientist Sara Seager has turned tragedy into tenacity in her search for new Earths among the stars

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Café Future: A new poem by David Yezzi

A new poem by David Yezzi

Phoenix glows even after 10 p.m. one April night in this image made with a camera sensitive to infrared light, which is generated by heat and invisible to the naked eye. Researchers call the city an “urban heat island.”

The Reality of a Hotter World is Already Here

As global warming makes sizzling temperatures more common, will human beings be able to keep their cool? New research suggests not

A neurosurgeon’s view during a brain operation: The head is held in place and covered with an adhesive drape containing iodine, which prevents infections and explains the orange tint.

Inside the Science of an Amazing New Surgery Called Deep Brain Stimulation

The most futuristic medical treatment ever imagined is now a reality

How America’s Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future

The literary genre isn’t meant to predict the future, but implausible ideas that fire inventors’ imaginations often, amazingly, come true

Less than a mile from the South Pole, the Dark Sector Lab’s Bicep2 telescope (at left) searches for signs of inflation.

Listening to the Big Bang

Just-reported ripples in space may open a window on the very beginning of the universe

An Iraq war veteran with PTSD has trouble with motivation.

Will Scientists Soon be Able to Erase Our Most Traumatic Memories?

PTSD treatments could soon extend beyond therapy

When a sodium-filled model of the Earth’s outer core spins at full speed, it could generate a dynamo.

What Will Happen When the Earth’s Magnetic Field Begins to Reverse?

On the University of Maryland campus, a giant whirligig tries to predict the planet’s next big flip

This Reversible Painting Flips Your Expectations of Art

A painter looks at her canvas from a new perspective

Crawling bare ivy on wall.

How to Bring a Devastated Forest Back to Life

Humans have damaged the world’s forests, but not irreparably

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From the Editor

From the Editor

Patrick Stewart on His Craft, 21st-Century Science and Robot Ethics

The actor whose leading roles in “Star Trek” and X-Men have taken him into the far future, reflects on where present-day society is headed

John Coltrane (left) “took it further than any [other] tenor saxophone player,” says photographer Chuck Stewart.

New Photos of John Coltrane Rediscovered 50 Years After They Were Shot

During the recording of A Love Supreme in 1964, Chuck Stewart caught the jazz legend in his element

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