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
- Lava Flows Down Mayon
The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 acquired this rare, relatively clear image of Mayon, the most active volcano in the Philippines, on Feb. 26, 2026. The natural-color scene is overlaid with infrared observations to highlight the lava’s heat signature. On that day, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS) reported volcanic earthquakes, rockfalls, and hot clouds of ash
- From Service to Space Systems: A Pathways Journey to NASA
For Corey Elmore, the path to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center did not begin in engineering. It began in service. Today he serves as a NASA Pathways engineering intern in the Technical Processes and Tools Branch (KSC-NE-TA) at Kennedy Space Center. Through the Pathways program, he is gaining hands-on experience supporting the engineering environments, technical tools
- How Frozen Ground Controls Water in a Warming World
Frozen ground acts like a hidden underground dam. As it thaws, water pathways shift, changing rivers, wetlands, ecosystems, and infrastructure across cold regions.
- Scientists Discover South America’s First Space Glass Fields, in Brazil
Tektites, rare natural glasses formed by ancient asteroid impacts, were found stretching across more than 900 kilometers of the country’s interior.
- 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 …
- A gene-editing method generates immunotherapeutic CAR T cells in the body
Nature, Published online: 18 March 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00634-5Laboratory-engineered immune cells called CAR T cells provide effective treatment for some cancers. Progress is being made towards creating these cells in vivo.
- Climate snapshots trapped in ancient ice tell a surprising story
Nature, Published online: 18 March 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00636-3Antarctic ice cores hint that changes in the ocean might have played a larger part than have greenhouse gases in key climate shifts of the past three million years.