CURRENT ISSUE

SUBSCRIBE

DIGITAL EDITIONS
RENEW | GIVE A GIFT
ARCHIVES
CUSTOMER SERVICE

RECENT

OUR BLOGS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT

TOPICS

RECENT PHOTO GALLERIES

TOPICS

Home
»
April

Table of Contents April 2012

Discover Magazine's mission is to enable readers to lead richer lives by explaining and expanding their universe. Each month we bring you in depth information and analysis from various topics ranging from technology and space to the living world we live in.

FEATURES

Does Rain Come From Life in the Clouds?

by Douglas Fox

Scientists are making their first forays into the mysterious world of biology miles up in the air. Their startling conclusion: That ecosystem in the sky might influence tomorrow's weather and next year's harvest.

Back to The Final Frontier

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson—the acclaimed astrophysicist, writer, and director of the Hayden Planetarium—lays out what it will take for America to remain the leading superpower in space. 

Science's Long—and Successful—Search for Where Memory Lives

by Dan Hurley

They called it a  myth as fantastical  as the unicorn,  but scientists have  now found the engram,  the physical trace  of memory in the brain. 

DEPARTMENTS

Hot Science

Hot Science: The Best New Science Culture

by Mary Beth Griggs, Valerie Ross, Eric A. Powell, Veronique Greenwood, Saron Vitbarek

Where Earth is coldest, where the digital universe was born, and where humanoids have four arms.

Getting Personal

Getting Personal: How I Contained the Mississippi

by Major General Michael Walsh

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commander makes the tough, smart decisions necessary to save cities and lives.

Impatient Futurist

Your Personal, Automated Mass Transit Vehicle Is on Its Way

by David H. Freedman

Get out of your car and into your flying train,  superclean superbus, and most impressive of all, your personal subway.

The Brain

The Brain: The Connections May Be the Key

by Carl Zimmer

Once we model the connectome—the million  billion points of contact between neurons in  the brain—we’ll glimpse the anatomy of the mind.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note: The Good Surprise

by Corey S. Powell

Not only will the world not end this year, it will bring more progress and technological advance.

Saints + Sinners

Saints + Sinners: Satellite Crashers, Alien-Hunter Funders

Big Idea

Big Idea: Physicists Carve a Niche in Time

by Adam Piore

Six years ago, physicists hid an object behind an invisibility cloak for the first time. Now they're cloaking actual events.

20 Things You Didn't Know About...

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Science  Fraud

by Eric A. Powell

The geniuses who fudged data, the cheaters who did it in plain sight, and the frauds who got away with it

Discover Q&A

Discover Interview: The World's Most Celebrated Virus Hunter, Ian Lipkin

by Grant Delin

The Columbia University researcher describes his quest for HIV in San Francisco and SARS in China, the immune cascades that may cause autism, and the infectious roots of psychiatric disease.

Vital Signs

Vital Signs: "We Can Take His Heart Out, Remove the Tumor, and Put It Back In"

by W. Roy Smythe

A patient’s heart tumor is all but inaccessible to  his surgeons. The only way to deal with it:  Remove the heart and operate on it outside the body.

Numbers

Numbers: The Majority of Minors Have Faced Mental Illness

by Kat McGowan