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by Caitlin Nichols figures by Krissy Lyon We’ve all heard the saying that quality is more important than quantity. The preference for quality over quantity applies in the human body as well. Cancer, for instance, is caused by malfunctioning cells that…

by Michael R. Gerhardt Our climate is rapidly changing, and many countries are beginning to take action. In the United States, President Barack Obama has announced the Clean Power Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electric power generation,…

by Patty Rohs figures by Anna Maurer New technology is allowing scientists to investigate natural history museum specimens in ways that we never thought were possible. To the public eye, these museums may seem like an unchanging archive of life on earth.…

Analysis of human DNA reveals a distinctive genetic “fingerprint” [Image: Micah’s DNA under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence]Spitting into a plastic tube normally doesn’t cost $199, but the personal genomics company 23andMe has recently won FDA…

Image from New Scientist illustrating the Delft experimental setup Quantum mechanics is so mind-boggling that it has stumped even the greatest minds. In particular, Albert Einstein was so bothered by quantum mechanics that he never gave up in his…

In this portrait of the Pailleron siblings, do you think Marie-Louise is fated to be spoiled while her older brother Édouard is sure to be bossy? “Portrait of Édouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron” by John Singer Sargent –…

by Aseda Tena figures by Shannon McArdel 122,621 people in the United States are currently eligible to receive a transplanted organ, but only about 30,000 transplants are performed each year due to a shortage of available organs. As a result,…

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about four billion years ago. The young planet Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 meters deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have…

by Fernanda Ferreira figures by Krissy Lyon The young, scaly creature bursts from the torso of its doomed host in a mix of guts and blood and stares blinkingly at its new environment. For most people the sentence above describes a famous scene from…

by Greg Silverberg figures by Kaitlyn Choi Cleantech is a troubled sector Scientists know from geological data that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have been below 300 parts per million for nearly 1 million years.  However, for about a…