Last of Their Kind: What Is Lost When Cultures Die?
The world's cultures have been disappearing, taking valuable knowledge with them, but there is reason to hope
Features
Why Can't We Live Forever?
As we grow old, our own cells begin to betray us. By unraveling the mysteries of aging, scientists may be able to make our lives longer and healthier
The Paradox of Time: Why It Can't Stop, But Must
For time to end seems both impossible and inevitable. Recent work in physics suggests a resolution to the paradox
How Much Is Left? The Limits of Earth's Resources
A graphical accounting of the limits to what one planet can provide
What Comes Next: Experts Predict the Future
The flip side to every ending is a new beginning. We asked the visionary scientists on our advisory board what new trends will shape the decades to come
Eternal Fascinations with the End: Why We're Suckers for Stories of Our Own Demise
Our pattern-seeking brains and desire to be special help explain our fears of the apocalypse
Good Riddance: Human Creations the World Would Be Better Off Without
Our highly selective list includes Teflon, dropped calls and the space shuttle
Laying Odds on the Apocalypse: Experts Assess Doomsday
Could modern civilization really come to an end? Experts take stock of eight doomsday scenarios
When Does Life Belong to the Living?
With thousands of people on the waiting lists for organs, doctors are bending the rules about when to declare that a donor is dead. Is it ethical to take one life and give it to another?...
Dust to Dust: The Brief, Eventful Afterlife of a Human Corpse
The brief, eventful afterlife of a human corpse
Departments
100 Years Ago: Sleeping Sickness
The Deepening Crisis: When Will We Face the Planet's Environmental Problems?
How does Geothermal Drilling Trigger Earthquakes?
- From the Editor
Start of the End
- Letters
Readers Respond on "Revolutionary Rail"
- Advances
Lunar Pencil Lead: Graphite Found in Moon Rock Collected During Apollo 17
Origami Sheets That Fold Themselves
Undifferentiated Ethics: Why Stem Cells from Adult Skin Are as Morally Fraught as Embryonic Stem Cells
Fat Attack: Will Three New Antiobesity Drugs Beat a Checkered Safety History?
Sour Showers
Rummaging for a Final Theory: Can a 1960s Approach Unify Gravity with the Rest of Physics?
Feeling the Pain of Rejection? Try Taking a Tylenol
Doubts on Dispersants
Quantum Light Switch: Single Atom Acts as a Transistor for Photons
- Recommended
Recommended: The 50 Most Extreme Places in Our Solar System
- Skeptic
Democracy's Laboratory: Are Science and Politics Interrelated?
- Anti Gravity
Shaky Ground: Can Seismologists Be Charged with a Crime for Not Predicting Deadly Quakes?
- Perspectives
Snake Oil in the Supermarket
- Critical Mass
A Year of Living Dangerously: Reflections on Hot-Button Science
