Issues

Recent observations could clarify the fate of water that once flowed on Mars.

The angular resolution of the new Cosmic Background Imager is fine enough to reveal, for the first time, the primordial seeds of galaxy clusters.

Congress, the administration, and a National Research Council committee have come up with myriad ideas for creating a department of homeland security, but just what role science and technology will play is unclear.

To save its science missions, ESA will follow a more rigid schedule and forge closer cooperation with national space agencies.

Since the early days of the Bush administration, OMB officials have warned that tighter rules for funding interagency R&D programs were on the way. The rules have arrived, and they cover applied and basic research.

CERN has begun implementing accounting and organizational changes and is slashing programs that do not directly support the Large Hadron Collider.

We have learned much about the workings of natural sinks like the oceans and terrestrial plants, but are just beginning to understand how their behavior might change as atmospheric CO₂ concentrations rise.

Superconductors are key components of magnets that generate homogeneous, low-noise, and extremely stable high fields. Further increasing the strength of these fields will require meeting a number of technological challenges.

Molecular spectra, electron emission from metals, and alpha decay provided fertile ground in the 1920s for applying the new ideas of quantum mechanics.