Night Watchman: Close Encounters
Witness the striking meeting ofthree planets and a sliver of moon.
by Bob Berman
Light Elements:Pigeons on Parade
Breeders have created head ruffs, chest frills,and fantails for the lowly, abused bird.
Space Watch: Hot Times on Titan
Saturn's largest moon is one of the coldest, most inhospitable worlds in the solar system. But 6 billion years from now, Titan will be dramatically different.
Archeology Watch: Magnetic Bishopric
Before Graham Borradaile's discovery, archeologists didn't know that a powerful dating tool la? hidden in every stone building and statue in the world.
Coils of Time
It's not easy studying the nautilus, a creature that lurks in the depths of the ocean and emerges only at night to prowl the coral reefs. But the rewards are great: discovering just how old a living fossil can be.
The Incredible Shrinking Finger Factory
For years engineers have touted the future wonders of microscopic machines. But they have ignored a real-world-size problem: If machine parts dwindle to tiny specks, how will human or even robotic hands ever assemble them? One man's ingenious solution:
Empires in the Dust
Some 4,000 years ago, a number of mighty Bronze Age cultures crumbled. Were they done in by political strife and societal unrest? Or by a change in the climate?
Malarial Dreams
Malaria kills 2.7 million people each year, most of them children. As a new generation of vaccines begin clinical trials, researchers wonder if they've finally got this killer beat.
Hot Seat
Hot Seat
Night Watchman: March Hare
Much is revealed by the pace and path of the sun and other sky denizens.
Light Elements: In the Nose of Jaws
Some parasitic copepods have seizedon a unique piece of ocean real estate.