Science

One Hundred Boxes

Space, time, and Donald Judd reconsidered.

By Jim Lewis

Eileen Collins

“It’s funny: I’ve never been scared on a shuttle mission. It’s just the nature of the job. You’re busy, you’re focused, you’re well trained, and you go, ‘You know, if I’m going to die, there’s nothing I can do about it.’”

By Evan Smith

The Truth Is Out There

Spoiler alert: The mythic Marfa lights may not be real. But there’s no way to know for sure, and that’s why they’re cool.

By Michael Hall

Space Race

Writer-at-large Jan Reid on entrepreneur Richard Garriott and commercial space flights.

By Leah Fillion

Dissing Darwin

Why Texas could lose the biotech revolution—and end up, once again, an economic also-ran.

By Michael Ennis

Heaven & Earth

The break-up of the space shuttle Columbia was a chilling reminder that the astronauts who dare to dream and risk their lives for the benefit of all mankind are, at the end of the day, mere mortals.

By Stephen Harrigan

Blood and Money

On the strength of a simple if indelicate question—“Who’s the Father?”—Houston’s Caroline Caskey has made a big splash in biotech.

By Pamela Colloff

Scorched Earth

This summer’s hot topic? Weather.

By Gregory Curtis

Science • Richard E. Smalley

Good chemistry.

By Gregory Curtis

Cancer Patience

To perfect a promising new gene therapy, doctors at Houston’s M. D. Anderson need time. Unfortunately, that’s one thing people with malignant brain tumors don’t have.

By Helen Thorpe

It Came From Outer Space

The inside story of how industrious NASA scientists discovered signs of life in a Martian rock and boosted the fortunes of the tabloids, Hollywood producers, and even the president.

By Mimi Swartz

Beaming

Beaming over a new aircraft landing device.

By Ellise Pierce

Up and Atom

The death of the superconducting supercollider may have been traumatic, but at their core the people of Waxahachie haven’t changed.

By Carol Chapman

Texas Twenty: Linda Aguilar-Bryan and Joseph Bryan

After a decade of lab work at Baylor College of Medicine, this husband-and-wife team has solved the mystery of hyperinsulinism.

By Helen Thorpe

The Outer Limits

Combining the latest technology with an old-fashioned passion for her work, Austin astronomer Anita Cochran redefined the solar system. Now her star is on the rise.

By Helen Thorpe

Cretaceous Crash

The dinosaurs had been doing just fine for 150 million years. All of a sudden …

By Kevin Swisher

Dem Bones

A Texas scientist ruffled some feathers when he said he had found the first bird.

By Melanie Cole

Alien Contact

Our fearless reporter survives a close encounter with UFO investigators.

By Helen Thompson

Bass on the Hook

A state breeding program aims to fatten up the trim, pugnacious bass.

By Texas Monthly

Boneyard

Ken Barnes wants to keep his dinosaur fossils near home.

By Helen Thompson

Animal House

At a Central Texas facility, researchers show lab-raised chimps things their mothers never taught them.

By Marion Winik

Big Bang

By Patricia Sharpe

The Brain Trust

Computers will finally use commmon sense if an Austin high-tech team can make them think like people.

By Bryan Bleil

The Flash Flood

In a land of contrasts, a few hours can mean the difference between drought and deluge.

By Joe Nick Patoski

Where NASA Went Wrong

The seeds of the Challenger disaster were sowed long ago, in the space agency’s conflict between its ideals and its politics.

By Al Reinert

Mining the Moon, Selling the Stars

Their business may read like a sci-fi script, but these aging astronauts, former Nasa engineers, technocrats, and high-risk junkies are serious about selling space.

By William Booth

The Tree-Ear, The Comb Tooth, & The Destroying Angel

Alice in Wonderland never discovered a mushroom half as exotic as Texas’ own native fungi.

By Barbara Rodriguez

We Wanted a Test Tube Baby

The odds for having a child of our own were slim to none. We took a chance on slim.

By Gary Cleve Wilson

All the Better to See You With, My Dear

Are eye surgeons miraculously changing the lives of folks with glasses as thick as Coke-bottle bottoms, or are they just making themselves rich ?

By Harry Hurt III

Texas, a Long, Long, Long, Long, Time Ago

When armadillos weighed three tons and the long horns were on dinosaurs.

By Lawrence Wright

Mr. Hannah’s Rocket

His first spacecraft blew up on the pad and his primary investor died, but the first free enterprise rocket finally flew from Matagorda.

By Stephen Harrigan

The Dinosaur Darwin Missed

Side by side near a Texas river are dinosaur tracks and what appear to be the marks of a human foot—proof, in the creationist mind, that evolution is bunk.

By Dale S. Turner

The Inheritance Factor

In Austin, experts in genetics are helping parents of children with birth defects come to terms with the most painful questions of their lives.

By Judy Benson

The Secret Life of the Beach

Along the silent, lovely beach, tiny armies fight in the tide, fierce battles rage in the sky, and nocturnal marauders slither across the sand.

By Stephen Harrigan

Moon Struck

Ten years ago the Apollo astronauts, technicians and scientists all, landed on the Moon and touched what poets only dreamed. But that touch changed their lives.

By Al Reinert

Laser Days

Lasers have been heralded as the greatest discovery since the computer, but they may be hazardous to your health.

By John Bloom

Planet X! We’re Waiting for You!

That’s the message Ray Stanford sends nightly into outer space; so far no one has answered.

By Stephen Harrigan

Star Struck

Star light, star bright, will the computer work tonight?

By Gregory Curtis

The Hottest Place in the Whole U.S.A.

How the Texas heat can sap your energy, dull your intelligence, send you to an early grave, and make you sweat.

By Harry Hurt III

Method Against Madness

What you eat affects the way you think; and what you think affects the way you eat.

By Roger Williams

So Long, Cosmic Cowboys

One giant step backward for the Moonmen.

By Al Reinert