Imagining…
Where Science Meets Creative Writing
Find a story within the topics above
How can we look at fossils and understand what creatures roamed the Earth millions of years ago?
How can we predict the behavior of materials deep within planetary interiors?
How can we reverse humanity’s impact on the global climate?
How can we predict habitats for life on other planets?
Doing impactful, innovative research requires training our brain to imagine the elusive unknown, even when bounded by scientific evidence. Now, more than ever in the history of human civilization, there is a pressing need to exercise our imagination muscles. Writing scientific fiction while accounting for the real science is a powerful way to do just that—to learn what is possible, what is probable, how we can change the future, and what our responsibility is to the future generation of our species.
Most Recent Stories
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Progress Without Morals
A scientist is trying to harness microbial properties to develop a fantastic tool. He believes he can; but should he?
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For Today’s Inspiration
- Stormy, Snowy Winter for Hokkaido
On February 5, 2026, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this image of snow-covered landscapes across Hokkaido. With more than 31 active volcanoes, the island features several large caldera lakes, including at least five that are visible in the image. (Calderas are large depressions formed by volcanic eruptions.) In the east, forested windbreaks around Nakashibetsu form
- NASA Advances High-Altitude Traffic Management
High-altitude flight is getting increasing attention from sectors ranging from telecommunications to emergency response. To make that airspace more accessible, NASA is developing an air traffic management system covering those altitudes and supplementing its work with real-time data from a research balloon in Earth’s stratosphere. Aircraft at high altitudes – 50,000 feet or higher, or roughly 10,000 to 20,000 feet above most commercial traffic – offer new
- Models Reveal Imprint of Tectonics and Climate on Alluvial Terraces
Mechanistic models are used to show how different drivers, including sediment and water supply, uplift and subsidence, and sea-level variations, affect the shapes and formation of extensive terraces.
- Restored Peatlands Could Become Carbon Sinks Within Decades
That’s much faster than what most scientists thought.
- Can science build a better working dog?
New approaches could put talented canines into the hands of more people with disabilities
- Politics and war complicate global effort to study changes to Earth’s poles
As preparations for the fifth International Polar Year kick off, organizers grapple with U.S. climate skepticism and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- How earthquakes organize stress
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 6, February 2026. <br/>SignificanceEarthquakes organize the stress in the crust by redistributing it through slip events. As a result, fault systems evolve to preferred, reproducible states as evidenced by natural experiments that measure statistical distributions of stress …
- Universal relation between spectral and wavefunction properties at criticality
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 6, February 2026. <br/>SignificanceAn important role in physics research is to uncover universal properties of various systems with different microscopic descriptions. Examples of microscopic models that exhibit paradigmatic properties are those that describe chaotic quantum …
- Why Europe barred China from flagship Horizon research programmes
Nature, Published online: 16 February 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00435-wFresh restrictions could result in China being less open with foreign collaborators, say some researchers.
- Editorial Expression of Concern: Deacetylation of p53 modulates its effect on cell growth and apoptosis
Nature, Published online: 16 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10246-8Editorial Expression of Concern: Deacetylation of p53 modulates its effect on cell growth and apoptosis