Right Now

Silhouette of a head filled with a street map, with a taxi driving into the brain

Right Now | May-June 2025

Why Taxi Drivers Don’t Die of Alzheimer’s

Explaining taxi and ambulance drivers’ protection against Alzheimer’s disease.

by Erin O'Donnell

A screen shot from the therapeutic video game RAGE Control (Regulate and Gain Emotional Control)

Right Now | January-February 2011

Gaming the Emotions

At Children's Hospital Boston, a video game offers emotionally explosive youths methods of self-control.

by Erin O'Donnell

Hyman professor of chemistry Charles Lieber has created a transistor so small it can be used to penetrate cell membranes and probe their interiors, without disrupting function. The transistor (yellow) sits near the bend in a hairpin-shaped, lipid-coated silicon nanowire. Its scale is similar to that of intra-cellular structures such as organelles (pink and blue orbs) and actin filaments (pink strand).

Right Now | January-February 2011

Virus-Sized Transistors

Chemist Charles Lieber and his colleagues have developed a nanoscale transistor so small it can enter, probe, and communicate with cells without harming them.

by Jonathan Shaw

When poverty is defined as living on $1.25 or less a day, about 40 percent of both Ethiopians and Uzbekistanis are considered poor. But by multidimensional measures that capture living standards, almost 90 percent of Ethiopians live in poverty, while only a small percentage of Uzbekistanis do.

Right Now | January-February 2011

Who Is Poor?

A multidimensional poverty index, based on the ideas of Amartya Sen, reveals a different map of the world's poor.

Right Now | November-December 2010

Hypervelocity Stars

Stars escaping the Milky Way help Warren Brown and other astronomers map the distribution of matter in our galaxy.

Right Now | November-December 2010

The Power of Touch

Tactile sensations change perceptions, says psychologist Christopher Nocera.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Raj Chetty

Right Now | November-December 2010

Kindergarten Matters

An economist finds that good kindergarten teachers boost pupils' earnings later in life.

by Erin O'Donnell

Thick bunches of nerves leave the brain or spinal cord and branch intricately within muscle (fibers of which can be seen running vertically in the background at right). The inset image shows individual axons (yellow) connecting to single synapses (red). The red stain is a snake venom that binds only to muscle receptors; poisonous kraits use it to immobilize their prey.

Right Now | November-December 2010

Fitness: Body and Mind

Caloric restriction and exercise boost mental acuity and motor ability by rejuvenating synapses.

by Jonathan Shaw

Right Now | September-October 2010

Making Memories

Neurobiologist Michael Greenberg investigates how memories form at a molecular level, and discovers a new class of RNA.

Termites like this soldier, patrolling a piece of fungal comb, aerate and improve the soil near their mounds.

Right Now | September-October 2010

Ecosystem Patterns and Productivity

Robert Pringle says the grid-like distribution of Kenyan termite mounds helps answer an old question about ecosystems.

by Samuel Bjork

The fate of stem cells (white) in bone marrow is influenced by their immediate environment of bone cells (green), blood vessels (red), and bone (blue). Genetical­ly defective “bad neighbors” can actually cause cancer.

Right Now | September-October 2010

“Good” Cells Gone “Bad”

David Scadden studies the environmental cues that can cause normal cells to become diseased.

by Jonathan Shaw