Issues

A new scheme could allow pacemakers, brain stimulators, and more to leave their batteries behind.

Simulations suggest that the planet’s top-heavy magnetic field derives from the unusual chemistry of its core.

A hybrid theoretical description provides a roadmap to designing better battery electrolytes.

The oceans aren’t vast enough to absorb growing amounts of carbon dioxide without ill effects to marine life and to the 1 billion people who make their living on the seas.

Although regulators say that current protections are adequate, the US government continues to pay for extra security features for facilities that hold radiological materials.

Teasing out signal from galactic noise is the biggest challenge in using diffuse neutral hydrogen to study the changing structure of the universe.

Recent advances in computational and spectroscopic tools offer new insights into the nature of thermal conduction at ever-finer length scales and ways to control it.

Injecting large volumes of low-viscosity water helps energy producers extract oil and gas from shales that tightly confine those fossil fuels. But the technique also confronts technical and environmental issues.

Leonardo da Vinci’s foundational work on hydrostatics combined traditional knowledge and innovative empiricism in an attempt to understand an object fraught with paradox: the water-filled container.

A simple model illustrates the operating principles of an information engine, a mechanical device that mimics the behavior of Maxwell’s demon by converting heat into information plus work.