coverstory

By age 10, most people are exposed to enough radiation to be at risk, but the science is so complicated that exposure could even have benefits.

• By Valerie Brown

In Northern California, where the drug laws can change with the mile markers, a supplier of medical marijuana risks going one toke over the (county) line.

• By David Freed

Since the LAPD's cold case unit began 10 years ago, detectives have used science to arrest serial killers and dozens of others who thought they had gotten away with murder.

• By Matthew McGough

The world’s best school systems depend on teacher collaboration, but the concept has not caught on in the U.S. We found schools where teamwork is making a difference.

• By Melinda Burns

Carol Meteyer solves cases of mysterious wildlife death using advanced forensic skills to help prosecute people who kill animals in violation of federal law.

• By Madeline Bodin

Big money, big energy and big environmentalism join forces to support big solar energy projects on federal land in the Southwest. But could these "green" projects actually be anti-environmental boondoggles in the making?

• By Michael Haederle

Drinking, smoking, taking prescription meds or failing to eat a balanced diet can influence the health of men's future children.

• By Emily Anthes

Putting carbon dioxide in the ocean is a terrible way to deal with climate change. Maybe we should do it.

• By Peter Friederici

How the potent hormone of empathy, oxytocin, is shaking up the field of economics.

• By Michael Haederle

It's not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It's a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.

• By Beryl Lieff Benderly

The human tendency toward war is based on biology, but the right family planning policies can redirect the world toward peace.

• By Thomas Hayden and Malcolm Potts

How brain-scanning technology is redefining criminal culpability.

• By Michael Haederle

Producing 'natural' cotton clothing is a huge and filthy global business that, Chinese-commissioned research shows, will be extremely difficult to clean up.

• By Chris Wood

MDMA holds promise as part of a therapy that helps post-traumatic stress patients confront and extinguish their fears. But ecstasy's recreational reputation has slowed research.

• By Matt Palmquist

Does the stress of living in a white-dominated society make African Americans get sick and die younger than their white counterparts? Apparently, yes.

• By Ryan Blitstein

In light of Justice David Souter's retirement plans and speculation that a female jurist will replace him, we're revisiting this October 2008 story that details the effect women judges can have on a panel.

• By Lee Epstein et al.

A Miller-McCune Research Essay by Columbia University professor Shahid Naeem on the importance of biodiversity and the true significance of the human species.

• By Shahid Naeem

A nonprofit group is working to create the new Rwanda, made by orphans.

• By Colleen Shaddox

Because it's not just the economy, our experts offer some solutions to problems that were under-discussed during the campaign.

• By Matt Palmquist

Faced with a horrific drug problem, Vancouver is trying a radical experiment: Let junkies be junkies.

• By Vince Beiser

A Danish professor promotes a cure for billion-dollar cost overruns in government megaprojects: Use past boondoggles as a baseline.

• By Ryan Blitstein

An unprecedented era of great-power aging makes it likely the 21st century will, again, be American.

• By Mark L. Haas

In Europe and elsewhere, governments are using ideas from the new science of well-being to try to make citizens more content. Will America follow their lead?

• By Ryan Blitstein