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
- A School of Mud Volcano Islands in Azerbaijan
The tadpole-shaped islands along the Absheron Peninsula were born by explosive mud volcano eruptions and reshaped by erosion.
- NASA on Track for Future Missions with Initial Artemis II Assessments
Following NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully splashing down on Earth, engineers started diving into detailed analysis of data to assess how key systems and subsystems on the Orion spacecraft, SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, and systems at the launch pad at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida performed. The Artemis II test flight successfully
- Can Any Single Satellite Keep Up with the World’s Floods?
How well does our current satellite fleet capture the world’s major floods? Scientists turn to the Dartmouth Flood Observatory record for a data-driven answer.
- What Makes Mars’s Magnetotail Flap?
Spacecraft reveal a key driver of up-and-down motions of thin, current-carrying plasma sheets on the nightside of Mars.
- Grand canyon’s origin resolved? Ancient lake’s flood may have etched famed gorge
Mineral grains show Colorado River filled a basin at the canyon’s head millions of years ago
- As helium-3 runs scarce, researchers seek new ways to chill quantum computers
Tight supplies of precious isotope are driving new approaches to ultracold tech
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 15, April 2026. <br/>
- Energetics of biomolecular shells in core–shell nanocomplexes
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 15, April 2026. <br/>SignificanceThe drug delivery efficiency of engineered nanocarriers depends critically on their stability in biological media. Here, we introduce the stabilization enthalpy concept to describe experimentally determined thermodynamic stability relations of …
- What does the future hold for the thawing Arctic?
Nature, Published online: 20 April 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01258-5Two experts unpack how trends in climate and geopolitics might unfold to shape the far north.
- No humans allowed: scientific AI agents get their own social network
Nature, Published online: 20 April 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01278-1Autonomous agents aren’t just creating their own research — on the Reddit-style website Agent4Science, they’re chatting about it, too.