Stories by Ann Chin

Palms May Be the Oldest Living Trees

What Is It?: Seasoned Cells

What Is It?: Salt of the Sky

What Is It?

What Is It?: Bone-Eating Worms

What Is It?: Gut Feeling

What Is It?

Telltale Hearts: What Autopsies Reveal about This Vital Organ

Despite advances in medical imaging, an autopsy still gives experts the best picture of what ails us

Photo Quiz: What Is It?

Pressure sensitive

Museum Menagerie: Historical Photos of the Construction of Early Wildlife Exhibits [Slide Show]

In honor of Darwin's birthday, we take a look back at diverse species being readied for display at the American Museum of Natural History

Penetrating Piscine Patterns: X-Rays Reveal What's Beneath Fishes' Scales [Slide Show]

A new exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History reveals the complex structures within fish

Photo Quiz: Guess the Image

Submerged specks

What Is It?

Small flies

Building the Hoover Dam Bridge [Slide Show]

A photographic essay captures the construction of a 1,900-foot addition to the iconic American landmark

Unnatural Landscapes: The Human Impact on Earth's Surface [Slide Show]

Edward Burtynsky's photography shows how mining, farming and other industrial activities have altered landscapes around the world

10 New Ways to Peer Inside the Human Mind

Artistry abounds in these 10 maps of the human mind

Yesterday's Tomorrow: A Look at Space Stations That Never Were [Slide Show]

The International Space Station is starting its 11th year of continuous human habitation. Here is a look at designs for orbiting outposts that didn't make it off the drawing board

What Is It?

A single grain of moon sand (magnified here about 300 times) reveals a ring created by a micrometeorite that struck it

What Is It?

Disguise genes

Secret Lives of Plankton Revealed in Microscopic Glory

The diversity of these ocean drifters, crucial to all life on Earth, is revealed in a new book