Features

• Most powerful laser creates phenomena of universe in University of Texas at Austin laboratory November 17, 2008

  Todd Ditmire leads the way into his new laboratory below Robert Lee Moore Hall. "We're two floors underground and we're about to go one more floor down to where we're under the high bay," the physics professor says, walking down a flight of stairs. "We're underneath the plaza in front of RLM, three floors underground." He jiggles a key into a lock and swings open the door to a subterranean chamber worthy of a James Bond villain--if... Read more of this story >

• With Hurricane Ike, researchers develop next-generation forecasts to safeguard coastal communities November 17, 2008

  Science at the Center of the Storm: It was Sept. 7, 2008, six days before Hurricane Ike, the third most destructive hurricane in U.S. history, crashed into the Texas coast. Ike had already made landfall in Cuba as a Category 4 hurricane, and in the coming days would gather strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Read more of this story >

Previous Features

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  Crime on the Rise? Crime on the Rise?: When the FBI and Department of Justice release their annual reports on crime in the United States, Dr. Mark Warr's phone starts ringing. His voicemail fills with interview requests from reporters seeking the criminologist's expertise for stories on rising crime.

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  Try a Little Tenderness Try a Little Tenderness: This can be a touchy subject, especially for parents, but recent research cautions there's such a thing as too much self-esteem. Many child-rearing books now tentatively suggest it's not necessary for parents to lavish "good job, good job" on their five-year-old when he blows his nose on his sleeve. As it turns out, criminals, bullies and bigots often have high self-esteem.

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  Phantoms of the Deep Phantoms of the Deep: In the depths of the Black Sea lies a landscape of eternal darkness. With no light and no oxygen in the sea's anoxic layer, no life can survive, except perhaps the ghosts of ancient mariners whose ships foundered thousands of years ago.

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  Parentology Parentology: One of the most fascinating aspects of studying parenting, say professors Deborah Jacobvitz and Nancy Hazen-Swann, is observing how parents confront (or fail to confront) the legacies of their own childhoods.