Stories by W. Wayt Gibbs

LIGO, a controversial observatory for detecting gravity waves, is coming online after eight years and $365 million

Scientists have reported that by bombarding a liquid with sound they were able to produce nuclear fusion in a tabletop apparatus. But their colleagues doubt it

Thanks to ingenious engineering, computers and appliances can now communicate through the electrical power wiring in a house

Is enough being done to keep biotechnology out of the wrong hands?

Ecologists' warnings of an ongoing mass extinction are being challenged by skeptics and largely ignored by politicians. In part that is because it is surprisingly hard to know the dimensions of the die-off, why it matters and how it can best be stopped

Tour the brain stem of planetary science--and see what kind of robot $1.5 billion buys

NEW INTERNET BROWSERS ADD AN EXTRA DIMENSION--BUT LITTLE DEPTH

Fact or Artifact? The Placebo Effect May Be A Little Of Both

THE SIMPLEST LIVING CELL IS SO COMPLEX THAT SUPERCOMPUTER MODELS MAY NEVER SIMULATE ITS BEHAVIOR PERFECTLY. BUT EVEN IMPERFECT MODELS COULD SHAKE THE FOUNDATIONS OF BIOLOGY

Challenging the HIV theory got virologist Peter H. Duesberg all but excommunicated from the scientific orthodoxy. Now he claims that science has got cancer all wrong

More copies exist of one of his works than of all previous artworks by all prior artists. Yet his self-replicating creations have never been exhibited in the United States.

Ambitious plans to penetrate icebound Lake Vostok have slowed to a crawl

The discovery that skin and bone marrow cells can transform into neurons raises hopes--and many questions

DNA microarrays are reshaping basic biology--but scientists fear they may soon drown in the data

A new industry is thrashed by waves of litigation

Jokes, ice water and magnetism can change your view of the world--literally

At a nuclear weapons lab, a team of elite hackers matches wits with undefeated autonomous defenders

Computer scientists build a dream house to test their vision of our future

New software makes it nearly impossible to remove illegal material from the Web--or to find out who put it there

As a virus never seen before swept through rural Malaysia, killing more than 110 and forcing the destruction of a million swine, it revealed the world's vulnerability to new diseases. Even the best efforts of top scientists are sometimes not enough to thwart them