News Feature in 2011

Ten people who mattered this year.

South Africa is vying fiercely with Australia to host a giant radio telescope that may never be built — but the competition itself is changing the country's science landscape.

Oliver Brüstle fought for more than a decade to pursue and patent human embryonic stem-cell research in Germany. Now his efforts have backfired.

Nations are racing to establish marine protected areas, but it's not clear whether many are living up to the name.

Henrik Ehrsson uses mannequins, rubber arms and virtual reality to create body illusions, all in the name of neuroscience.

To save the Amazon, Bruce Babbitt wants to isolate islands of oil and gas production amid a sea of trees.

A menagerie of intriguing cell structures, some long-neglected and others newly discovered, is keeping biologists glued to their microscopes.

As the country struggles to refashion its government, archaeologists are looking warily towards the future.

How the reclusive Mike Malin changed the way that scientists view Mars.

Did a giant impact 200 million years ago trigger a mass extinction and pave the way for the dinosaurs?

Five years in, has a lofty experiment in interdisciplinary research paid off?

Pollinating insects are in crisis. Understanding bees' relationships with introduced species could help.

Pollinating insects are in crisis. Understanding bees' relationships with introduced species could help.

The US government says that a huge earthquake risk lurks in the heart of the country, where a series of large shocks hit 200 years ago. Seth Stein says that kind of warning is dead wrong.

Diagnoses and research funding are rising, but much about autism remains a puzzle. Nature seeks some truths.

Convinced by the evidence that vaccines do not cause autism, Alison Singer started a research foundation that pledges to put science first.

Shifting diagnoses and heightened awareness explain only part of the apparent rise in autism. Scientists are struggling to explain the rest.

Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen thinks scientists and engineers could be more likely to have a child with autism. Some researchers say the proof isn't there.

Asking parents to donate a child's brain to research is emotionally fraught. Some researchers say that it is time to put aside the taboos.

The genome of a 660-year-old bacterium is revealing secrets from one of Europe's darkest chapters.