RICHARD CONNIFF traveled halfway around the world to root in the mud for new ant species with biologist and renegade taxonomist Brian Fisher ("Antsy in Madagascar," page 44). While flying over the island, Conniff was struck by how short-lived Fisher's window for discovery may be. "From the air, you can see the deforestation, the smoke rising, and the brown rivers," he says. "You watch the soil winding away and think of all the things that are being lost along with it." Conniff's latest book, The Ape in the Corner Office (Crown, 2005), is based on his May 2000 Discover article "So, You Want to Be the Boss?"

CHARLES SIEBERT offers a guided tour of a new biological frontier in his article about Mimivirus, the largest virus ever discovered ("Unintelligent Design," page 32). "It's probable that something similar was the first form of cellular life," he says. "So in an age where we still have people believing in intelligent design and the Immaculate Conception, that's a kind of wake-up call." Siebert often writes about the natural world and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Harper's. His latest book is A Man After His Own Heart: A True Story (Crown, 2004).

MICHAEL SOLURI visited the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland three times for the article about New Horizons, the first probe to Pluto ("Journey to the Outer Limits," page 52), and had unparalleled access to the chamber where the machine is being built. "The probe is beautiful, like a piece of sculpture," Soluri says. "There's a magical, otherworldly quality about pointing a camera at a telescope lens that will itself, in 10 years, bring us the first pictures of the only planet in our solar system whose appearance we're still not sure of." Soluri's book, What's Out There: Images From Here to the Edge of the Universe, was a Discover 2005 book of the year.

MISHA GRAVENOR traveled to Boulder, Colorado, to photograph planetary scientist and Earth-asteroid collision expert Clark R. Chapman in an observatory near the Southwest Research Institute. "He was a surprisingly calm and laid-back guy for someone who measures the risk of an impact that could end all of civilization," says Gravenor. "Me, I think it's a little terrifying that just last year an asteroid came the closest that one's ever been to striking Earth, and nobody even knew about it until it had passed." Gravenor's photographs can also be seen in Dwell, Fortune, and Fast Company.