英語で読む日経サイエンス

The first indication that our expedition was not going as planned was the abrupt sputter and stop of the boat’s inboard engine at 2 a.m. The sound of silence had never been less peaceful. Sudden … 続きを読む →

Ten years ago publication of the human genome sequence gave the world a blueprint for a human being. But just as a list of automobile parts does not tell us how a car engine works, the complete genome … 続きを読む →

I am standing next to a five-year old girl in Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York in northern Australia. When I ask her to point north, she points precisely and … 続きを読む →

Is it possible to automate scientific discovery? I don’t mean automating experiments. I mean: Is it possible to build a machine—a robot scientist—that can discover new scientific k … 続きを読む →

Peering through the microscope at the thin slice of  fossilized bone, I stared in disbelief at the small red spheres a colleague had just pointed out to me. The tiny structures lay in a blood … 続きを読む →

On September 23, 1846, Johann Gottfried Galle, director of the Berlin Observatory, received a letter that would change the course of astronomical history. It came from a Frenchman, Urbain Le Verrier … 続きを読む →

The mirror, a perfect hexagon of gunmetal gray, stands vertically on a low platform. It is about two inches thick and more than four feet wide, a precisely carved slab of beryllium that gleams in the … 続きを読む →

Once again, the world is about to end. The latest source of doomsday dread comes courtesy of the ancient Mayans, whose calendar runs out in 2012, as interpreted by a cadre of opportunistic authors and … 続きを読む →

The movie Fantastic Voyage, the story of a miniaturized team of doctors traveling through blood vessels to make lifesaving repairs in a patient’s brain, was pure science fiction when it came out i … 続きを読む →

Back in the early 1970s, a handful of scientists, engineers, defense contractors and U.S. Air Force officers got together to form a professional group. They were essentially trying to solve the same p … 続きを読む →

※ この記事は著者自身が英語から日本語に訳して日経サイエンスに掲載したため，原文の英語にはない文章が後から付け加えられています。 … 続きを読む →

The video my colleagues and I shot is amazing. A blind man is making his way down a long corridor strewn with boxes, chairs and other office paraphernalia. The man, known to the medical world as TN, h … 続きを読む →

I remember my excitement one morning in the winter of 2006 when I peered through a microscope in my laboratory and saw a colony of cells that looked just like embryonic stem cells. They were clustered … 続きを読む →

Ignition is close now. Within a year or two the 192 laser beams at the National Ignition Facility (NIF)──the world's largest and most powerful laser system, a 13-year, $4-billion enterprise──w … 続きを読む →

Among primates, humans are unique in having nearly naked skin. Every other member of our extended family has a dense covering of fur──from the short, black pelage of the howler monkey to the flowi … 続きを読む →