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December

Table of Contents December 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

Planet Hunter

by Andrew Grant

Meet the man behind Kepler, the planet-finding telescope that is hot on the trail of Earth-like worlds.

The Bypass Cure

by Bijal P. Trivedi

Type 2 diabetes can be reversed in the operating room. The implications are staggering for halting one of America’s deadliest diseases.

Hot Science

by Valerie Ross

In 2012 we learned the value of a smartphone photo filter, went fishing in the desert, and survived the apocalypse several times over. Here are the highs (and a few lows) from the year in geek culture. 

The Cooperation Instinct

by Kristin Ohlson

In a dog-eat-dog world, people still  cooperate, collaborate, and help each other out. Our species’ urge to work together has remained  an evolutionary paradox, seemingly at odds with Darwinian theory—until now.  

Big Idea: Help Stressed Vets With Sim Coaches

by Adam Piore

A team of characters sporting flight suits and buzz cuts helps troops  confront post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Crazy or Brilliant? 

by Jordan Hollender

Science is a risky business, argue leading  researchers in a special DISCOVER roundtable.  You have to gamble big to win big.

DEPARTMENTS

20 Things You Didn't Know About...

20 Things You Didn't Know About... The End

by Jonathon Keats

The Brain

The Brain: The Charlie Brown Effect

by Carl Zimmer

A comic book artist-turned-neuroscientist says the images in Peanuts tap  the same brain processes as sentences.

Tools of the Trade

Tools of the Trade: Tune In, Drop Out 

by Steve Nadis

Notes From Earth

How Life Got Complicated

by Douglas Fox

In China's Guizhou Province, a thin band of rock crowded with fossils smaller than poppy seeds may reveal the origin of all the animals that ever lived.

Vital Signs

Vital Signs: Read Her Lips

by Robert A. Norman

Does a patient with a swollen upper lip suffer from allergies, or is the symptom a clue to a much rarer condition?

Out There

When Universes Collide

by Steve Nadis

Scientists are probing the farthest reaches  of the cosmos for the site of an epic smash-up: the crash of our universe into another.

Editor's Note

Beyond Geek Chic

by Corey S. Powell

Quantification, not comic books, is what is having the real impact.