News features
-
Carbon trading: How to save a forest
Projects in Madagascar could provide a model for stemming deforestation. But first these efforts must deal with the poverty and political upheaval that threaten forests, reports Anjali Nayar.
04 November 2009
-
Conservation biology: Reflecting the past - Premium content
Unsatisfied with merely halting environmental destruction, some conservationists are trying to reconstruct ecosystems of the past. Emma Marris travels back in time with the rewilders.
04 November 2009
-
Decision-making: Risk school - Premium content
Can the general public learn to evaluate risks accurately, or do authorities need to steer it towards correct decisions? Michael Bond talks to the two opposing camps.
28 October 2009
-
Neuroscience: Shooting pain - Premium content
Sean Mackey inflicts pain on people in the hope of learning how to relieve it. Erik Vance gets on the receiving end.
28 October 2009
-
-
Climate: When the ice melts
Deep in the Himalayas, the disappearance of glaciers is threatening the kingdom of Bhutan. Anjali Nayar trekked through the mountains to see how the country is adapting to a warming world.
21 October 2009
-
Climate: Counting carbon in the Amazon
If the next climate treaty tackles deforestation, tropical nations will need to monitor the biomass of their forests. One ecologist has worked out a way to do that from the sky, finds Jeff Tollefson.
21 October 2009
-
Neuroscience: Opening up brain surgery - Premium content
Neurosurgeons have unparalleled access to the human brain. Now they are teaming up with basic researchers to work out what makes it unique, finds Alison Abbott.
14 October 2009
-
Seismology: Shaking up earthquake theory - Premium content
Geological faults are not behaving as scientists once expected. Glennda Chui reports on efforts to forge a new understanding of quake behaviour.
14 October 2009
-
Neuroscience: Small, furry … and smart - Premium content
Researchers have engineered more than 30 strains of 'smart mice', revealing possible ways to boost human brains. But, as Jonah Lehrer finds, cognitive enhancement may come at a cost.
14 October 2009
-
-
We recommend
-
Neuroscience: One hundred years of Rita - Premium content
From a home lab to the Italian Senate, by way of nerve growth factor — Rita Levi-Montalcini is a scientist like no other. Alison Abbott meets the first Nobel prizewinner set to reach her hundredth birthday.
01 April 2009
-
Science journalism: Breaking the convention? - Premium content
Blogs and Twitter are opening up meetings to those not actually there. Does that mean too much access to science in the raw, asks Geoff Brumfiel.
24 June 2009
-
Protein structures: Structures of desire - Premium content
What do protein crystallographers dream of? The eukaryotic ribosome, the spliceosome, the nuclear-pore complex, the HIV trimer and almost any transmembrane protein, finds Ananyo Bhattacharya.
06 May 2009
