Technology

The Era of Nanoparticle Drugs Begins With Erection Cream

Tiny drug-carrying balls of sugar are delivering medicine in novel—and very useful—ways. 10.09.2009

Introducing the Most Efficient Solar Power in the World

It's taken 25 years, but a new solar-thermal plant in New Mexico has finally broken the old efficiency record. 10.08.2009

The 9 Industries That Will Be Most Screwed by Global Warming

If climate change reaches scientists' more dire predictions, it could change every facet of our society. But some industries will be especially hammered. 10.02.2009

Think Tech: The Best Gadgets to Buy This Month

Devices that are smart, green, portable, and super tough 10.01.2009

A Modest Proposal: How to Stop Aging Entirely

Biologist Aubrey de Grey lays out a plan to stay young forever. Key step: finally winning the war on cancer. 09.23.2009

In the Race Between Optical and Magnetic Storage, We Win

DVD-size disks that hold 10 terabytes. Memory chips that remember even when the power's off. 09.22.2009

Set Your CT Scanner to "Kill" and Look Inside Some Fossils

Penetrating chunks of amber and ancient rock, powerful new imaging machines render 3-D portraits of fossil creatures concealed for millions of years. 08.26.2009

What is This? Spirograph 2.0?

Hint: It represents a best-selling piece of literature. 08.24.2009

The Universe's Most Powerful Magnets

Nuclear fusion reactors, particle colliders, and other big-science rely on giant magnetic fields. But nature's most powerful magnets blow even our best efforts away. 08.21.2009

3-D Scanning: How to Put the Real World Into Your Computer

The recent imaging of two 300-million-year-old proto-spiders was just the tip of the iceberg: Here are 12 new scanning technologies that are bringing amazing 3-D images into Hollywood, medical care—and home PCs. 08.12.2009

In the Future, Doing Science Is Like Blogging

Fiction from Bruce Sterling: "If you can read a popular-science publication (and enjoy it), then you most likely have enough brainpower to help us make massive scientific breakthroughs..." 08.10.2009

9 Ways Carbon Nanotubes Just Might Rock the World

Nanotubes have been billed as the key to curing cancer, building space elevators, and creating real-world Spidermen. Whether they're totally tubular or just an overhyped pipe dream remains to be seen. 08.06.2009

Shadow Life

DISCOVER Fiction: In the post-economic future, big-ticket science is dead and amateurs hunt aliens using gear scored cheap on eBay. 08.04.2009

Future Tech: The Carbon Nanotube Grows Up—Into Nanoyarn a Kilometer Long

One company's special manufacturing process turns out yarns and sheets millions of time the size of normal nanotubes. 07.21.2009

Professor Roboto: Putting Science on Autopilot

Artificial intelligence is becoming ever better at doing science, from archaeology to physics to genetics. 07.13.2009

Think Tech: Taking Pictures at Another Time and Place

A new Olympus camera lets you take pictures like a photojournalist or a 19th-century photo pioneer. 07.08.2009