Issues

Researchers harnessed nanoconfinement effects to achieve elasticity and efficient charge transport in a semiconducting material.

The detection of the small, light atoms heralds the emergence of the technique as a powerful crystallographic tool.

Silicon carbide devices lasted more than three weeks in a laboratory simulation of the corrosive conditions that prevail on the planet’s surface.

The most immediate concern is that the country remain attractive and welcoming for foreign researchers and students.

Experiments to scale back micromanagement are under way at two national laboratories. Other lab contractors also report measured improvements.

Data disappearing is far from the only thing researchers are worried about under the Trump administration, but it’s one they can do something about.

The orbiters, landers, and rovers that have probed the red planet over the past two decades reveal it to be chemically complex, historically watery, and suitable as a home for life.

Notwithstanding the awe-inspiring diversity of living creatures, the forms and processes of life are limited by universal principles that act at large and small scales.

The search for extraterrestrial life is increasingly informed by our knowledge of exoplanets. Within three decades, we may know whether extrasolar life is rare.

A very ordinary, isolated star varies by 20% in brightness on time scales from a day to a century. No one has yet proposed a convincing explanation.