Learning plays a largely unappreciated role in mental development, according to researchers who examine the variety of tactics children adopt as they attempt to solve problems in mathematics and other areas. (p. 172)

The number of centenarians is expected to double every ten years, making this formerly rare group one of the fastest-growing in the developed world. Researchers are turning to studies of the oldest old to determine how genes, lifestyle, and social factors contribute to longevity. (p. 156)

Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe’s mass-giving particle—the Higgs boson—have fired up the world’s highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit. (p. 152)

Scientists puzzle over why some wasps and beetles race to forest fires. (p. 140)

One arcane family of fats may be tapped to treat or prevent a host of diseases. (p. 136)

A proposed national virtual observatory, a mammoth computer database integrating spectra, images, and other information covering the entire sky, could usher in a new age of discovery in astronomy. (p. 124)

In the wake of one of the worst fire seasons in the past 50 years, scientists are assessing risk as more people move into fire-prone areas and developing ways to better predict the behavior of--and the potential for--wildfires. (p. 120)

Materials scientists have turned the tools of their trade on some of the most familiar substances in the world: food. (p. 108)

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may also treat or prevent Alzheimer's disease. (p. 92)

Two prototype jumping robots that hop, crash-and-land, and then hop again are demonstrating a novel mobility concept that may finally enable small, cheap robots to roam widely over rough terrain. (p. 88)

Some chemists are sharing their research results more quickly and broadly as they begin to venture into electronic archives, where they can immediately post new, unreviewed papers, as physicists have done for a decade; others think such archives could mean the end of reliable chemistry research. (p. 76)

On a tight energy budget, newborns no bigger than chipmunks grow into roly-poly superstars. (p. 61)

A new book raises troubling and controversial issues regarding research on a famous South American Indian population. (p. 58)