Sugar May Be Bad, But Is the Alternative Worse?
| Given the recent controversy over sugar, one might look to artificial sweeteners for an easy alternative to thorny scientific and ethical questions. But to anyone seeking pastel-packaged reassurance that regulators won't ever need to pry donuts from their cold, dead and pudgy fingers, science offers only more uncertainty. |  |
Spectacular High-Res Image of Earth: The Other Side
| Last week, NASA released its 2012 version of the famous "Blue Marble" image. By using a planet-pointing satellite, Suomi NPP, the space agency created an extremely high resolution photograph of our watery world. |  |
The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011
| Toxic barbs on a cucumber’s skin, nanoscopic flakes of metal and a mouse’s technicolor eyeball are just a few of 2011's best science visualizations. |  |
Cosmonaut Couture: Russian Photo Shoot Makes Space Sexy
| In a resurgent space-themed fashion shoot, supermodel Natalia Semanova mingles with real-life cosmonauts in Star City, the home of Russia's space training program. We interview the spread's photographer, Arthur Elgort, for the back story. |  |
Video: How the View From a Comet Might Look
| The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft is heading for a comet.
The ambitious mission -- scheduled to enter orbit Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in January of 2014 and place a tiny lander named Philae on its surface that November – will no doubt return incredible, never-before-seen pictures. Until then, observers on Earth will have to make do with artists' renderings like the ones in this video. |  |
Russian Drill Nears 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake
| After 20 years of drilling, a team of Russian researchers is close to breaching the prehistoric Lake Vostok, which has been trapped deep beneath Antarctica for the last 14 million years. |  |
