Standing outside in the dark and the cold on the east coast of Scotland, 500 people let out a communal gasp as a huge screen was illuminated on the side of the Torness nuclear power station.
Burl Skaggs lives in a two-story house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each workday he has breakfast, kisses his wife Carol goodbye, and goes down to his extra-large garage.
Upon arriving for work at the laboratory of Masatoshi Koshiba at the University of Tokyo, Yoji Totsuka handed me a fax telling of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, picked up by optical telescopes.
Unveiling the three-dimensional structure of proteins thrills scientists. While the potential for understanding the folding and function of enzymes is truly exciting by itself, exploring macromolecule structures also satisfies a more fundamental urge: to see the invisible.
Innovative 21st century technology at Argonne National Laboratory is taking researchers back to the 19th century, the 16th century, and even the third millennium BCE.
Citation numbers and the Impact Factor of journals are often used to evaluate the quality and the importance of research. Both quantities have some shortcomings, and people using these indicators should know when and when not to use them.
