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
- Curiosity Shakes Loose a Pesky Rock
After NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drilled a sample from this rock on April 25, 2026, it withdrew its robotic arm and pulled the entire rock off the surface with it. Engineers spent several days repositioning the arm and vibrating the drill to try and get the rock loose. When it finally detached on May 1,
- Hubble Sights Galaxy in Transition
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals an enigmatic galaxy with a bright center and a face that hints at spiral structure, yet it holds no obvious spiral arms. Reddish-brown clumps and filaments of dust partially obscure the galaxy’s full face, while red, blue, and orange light from distant galaxies shines through its diffuse outer
- Mongolian Mountains Rose When the Crust Bounced Back
A plate folded, the lithosphere sank, and up popped a mountain range.
- The Global Impact of Losing U.S. Sea Level Science
Cuts to climate science risk halting or even erasing decades of progress in global change research—just as risks from rising seas demand better data, informed decisionmaking, and faster action.
- Did this scientist go too far trying to save Ecuador’s wildlife?
Alejandro Arteaga’s efforts to identify and protect tropical reptiles and amphibians have entangled him in controversy
- A powerhouse species in peril | Science
Kelp forests capture carbon, clean oceans, protect coastlines, and more—and they need our help
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. <br/>
- Evaluating the statistical realism of LLM-generated social science data
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 19, May 2026. <br/>SignificanceLarge language models (LLMs) enable the generation of data that could potentially be analyzed for social research. While the need for assessing the validity of such AI-generated data is widely recognized, we do not yet have a coherent …
- US biology lab locked down for more than a week amid smuggling inquiry
Nature, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01590-wThe Trump administration has spent months investigating the lab after a Chinese postdoc was charged with smuggling biological material into the country.
- Mouse eyes photosynthesize after plant-to-animal transplant
Nature, Published online: 15 May 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-01559-9Could spinach extracts be the next treatment for dry-eye disease?