News Feature in 2006

Understanding the trade-offs involved for plants making leaves promises fresh insights on every scale from the plant to the planet, finds John Whitfield

Research suggests that consuming soil may have more health implications than one might expect. Trevor Stokes sieves through the reasons why people include dirt in their diet.

Islamist political parties are taking over from secular ones across the Muslim world. What does this mean for science at home and scientific cooperation with the West? Ehsan Masood investigates.

The ancient Antikythera Mechanism doesn't just challenge our assumptions about technology transfer over the ages — it gives us fresh insights into history itself.

Is the cure for cancer lurking beneath the waves? Emma Marris plunges into the chemistry of marine natural products.

There's a fight going on inside all our cells for each breath of air. Nick Lane sheds therapeutic light on the implications for cancer and degenerative diseases.

The cheerful leaves of the poinsettia could be hiding an unwelcome visitor this festive season. Rex Dalton goes in search of the whitefly, a potentially devastating pest.

Representative Rush Holt is a rare thing in the US Congress — a bona fide scientist building a promising political career. Since his election for the 12th district of New Jersey — the one containing Princeton — eight years ago, this former physicist and son of a West Virginia senator has garnered several powerful committee slots. Holt has emerged as one of the Democratic Party's most prominent spokesmen on science, education and security. Colin Macilwain asked him about the life of a scientist on Capitol Hill, and what the mid-term elections could mean for science and education.

Darwin is the latest eminent scientist to get an online archive. How do these undertakings change our understanding of history, asks Henry Nicholls.

Can science influence politics in the forthcoming US elections? Nature investigates how Democrats and Republicans are striving to win the hearts of voters.

AIDS treatment in South Africa is often a tug-of-war between clinicians and traditional healers. Natasha Bolognesi meets a woman who is uniquely qualified to heal the rift.

It started life as an anaesthetic, then became a psychedelic club drug. Now researchers think ketamine could hold the key to understanding and treating depression, says Erika Check.

What can pirates' journals and centuries-old cookbooks teach modern-day ecologists? Mark Schrope meets the researchers who trawl history books for deeper insights into marine ecosystems.

We're selfish and rational — that's what classical economics says. But play parlour games with brain scanners and you'll find we're pulled in different directions when it comes to money. Jonah Lehrer reports.

Can an advertising executive write an accurate thriller about science? Britta Danger talks to a German author who thinks he has pulled it off.

What drives environmental activists to fire-bomb laboratories? Emma Marris investigates a radical fringe of the US green movement.

Hagia Sophia has stood four-square in Istanbul for more than 1,500 years. Virginia Hughes finds out how this venerable building has resisted the area's numerous earthquakes.

Science journalists in the developing world face unique stumbling blocks, even as some of the biggest science stories unfold around them. Mike Shanahan reports.

US astronomers are renowned for getting together and choosing their projects as a group. But just as these tactics are catching on in other fields, some say the astronomy process is grinding to a halt. Geoff Brumfiel investigates.