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
- Tiny NASA Spacecraft Delivers Exoplanet Mission’s First Images
With the first images from the spacecraft now in hand, the team behind NASA’s Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, or SPARCS, is ready to begin charting the energetic lives of the galaxy’s most common stars to help answer one of humanity’s most profound questions: Which distant worlds beyond our solar system might be habitable? Initial, or
- Webb Spots Details in Nearby Spiral Galaxy
Stars peek through the dusty, winding arms of NGC 5134, a spiral galaxy located 65 million light-years away, in this Feb. 20, 2026, image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument collects the mid-infrared light emitted by the warm dust speckled through the galaxy’s clouds, tracing the clumps and strands of dusty gas.
- Poor Health and Systemic Inequity Fuel Environmental Harm
Environmental degradation poses well-established risks to human health. But the relationship between the two isn’t a one-way street.
- The Planet That Shouldn’t Be There
A newly discovered exoplanet suggests that a different way to build planetary systems could be possible.
- Relic of long-vanished ice sheet holds clues to ancient climate
Glacial ice melting out of Alaska’s eroding coastline offers a glimpse into a lost climate history
- The imminent collapse of the Great Salt Lake | Science
A new documentary confronts the dire future of North America’s largest terminal lake
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 10, March 2026. <br/>
- The geometry of Nature’s stingers is universal due to stochastic mechanical wear
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 10, March 2026. <br/>SignificancePointed objects such as stingers, horns, and teeth have been observed to exhibit a paraboloid geometry at the tip. Interestingly, this tip geometry is not exclusive to biological structures; it is also found in abiotic forms as disparate as …
- Quantum entanglement as a tool to image distant astronomical objects
Nature, Published online: 11 March 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00724-4Particles entangled over long distances can, in theory, improve the sensitivity of long-baseline interferometers that are observing weak thermal light sources. A proof-of-concept experiment now demonstrates entanglement-assisted interferometry, paving the way for entanglement-enhanced non‑local sensing techniques.
- What is the science behind ‘science-backed’ supplements?
Nature, Published online: 11 March 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00707-5The task of decoding the research underlying the nutritional claims of health supplements is rarely straightforward.