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
- What’s Up: November 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA
Meteor Showers, a Spacecraft Milestone, and a Supermoon Catch Taurid and Leonid meteors, spot Mars near Jupiter, celebrate Voyager 1’s light-day milestone, and watch November’s supermoon. Skywatching Highlights Transcript A month of meteor showers … a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter … and a supermoon! That’s What’s Up for November. November offers a buffet
- NASA Invites Media to Northrop Grumman CRS-25 Station Resupply Launch
Media accreditation is open for the next launch to deliver NASA science investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. A Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft will launch in November to the orbital laboratory on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for NASA. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 25,
- Connecting Radio Wave Disruption to “Hot” Charged Particles from Afar
A tag-team of satellites and ground GNSS receivers track down the source of a radio signal disruption (scintillation) from afar—a “hotspot” of plasma some 60,000 kilometers away.
- U.S. River Sediment Transport Is Becoming “Burstier”
The time frame in which U.S. rivers move most of their sediment has compressed significantly, which could have implications for water treatment, aquatic habitats, erosion, and harmful algal blooms.
- In This Issue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 43, October 2026. <br/>
- A functional two-pore-domain K+ channel from a large DNA virus
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 123, Issue 43, October 2026. <br/>SignificanceWhile the evolutionary history of the pore and its sensor domains in modern K+channels can be traced back to prokaryotes, the origin of a tandem architecture remains unknown; such structures do not occur in bacteria. Here, we highlight a …
- In Indonesia, PhD students blow the whistle on bad supervision
Nature, Published online: 02 November 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02465-wThe nation plans to boost the number of doctoral candidates, but some early-career researchers warn of systemic challenges, including poor-quality supervision.
- Five overlooked steps to identify new epidemics, fast
Nature, Published online: 02 November 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03509-xCurrent measures to track emerging epidemics have a key limitation: they don’t work if the disease causes unusual or unexpected symptoms.