December 2009

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Vital Signs: How Do You Treat a Watermelon in the Belly?

Early diagnosis and a fruit of modern medicine keeps a killer at bay.
by Tony Dajer

Destination Science: Hunting Dinosaurs With Jack Horner

Exploring with Horner is part rugged outdoor workout, part evolutionary adventure, which helps explain why some 40 people trek to this remote part of Montana each summer to join him on his fossil hunts.
by Boonsri Dickinson

Discover Interview: The Man Who Builds Brains

Using computer processors that behave like neurons in the neocortex, Henry Markram is inching closer to building a simulated human brain—a truly conscious machine.
by David Kushner; photography by Robert Huber

Numbers: Water, From Precipitation to Irrigation to Sanitation

by Jeremy Jacquot

Field Notes: Meddling With Mosquito Romance in the Name of Public Healt

The duets sung by male and female mosquitoes are a critical part of their mating ritual. If researchers can master mosquito music, they may be able to abort a whole generation of disease-carriers.
by Dava Sobel

5 Reasons Science [Hearts] Google

The company that tamed the Web is now helping researchers see the world with fresh eyes.
by Elizabeth Svoboda

5 Questions for the Developing World's Disease Fighter

Jose Gomez-Marquez finds new vaccine technologies that work in the lab and in the real world.
by Boonsri Dickinson

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Digestion

#15: In which painful condition does your body literally start eating yourself from within?
by LeeAundra Keany

Visual Science: The Ultimate X-Ray Generator

To get really high-energy X-rays, you need some really powerful magnets.

The Brain: What Is the Speed of Thought?

Faster than a bird and slower than sound. But that may be besides the point: Efficiency and timing seem to be more important anyway.
by Carl Zimmer

What Is This... A Hi-Tech Pin Cushion?

Hint: There are a lot fewer of them now than there were a few years ago.
by Andrew Grant