Mason Inman - science journalist

22 August 2007, for New Scientist

Coating surfaces with carbon nanotubes could keep them microbe-free, according to a study that shows how they pop and kill bacteria upon contact.

Several previous studies have shown that carbon nanotubes can be toxic to human cells in the lab, and to some animals, although results have sometimes conflicted and often been controversial.

18 August 2007, on the cover of New Scientist

POP. What are the chances that an everyday object—a rock, a chair, you name it—could suddenly appear out of thin air?

Not zero, surprisingly. In fact, given enough space and time, it is conceivable that a conscious being could arise, even if only for a microsecond.

OK, such an event would be incredibly unlikely, but not impossible—at least in theory. Physicists have dubbed such hypothetical beings "Boltzmann brains", after the 19th-century Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, a pioneer in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.

August 2007, in Scientific American Mind

Our brain cells are chattier than previously thought, according to a new study.

Cells in white matter, once believed to passively relay information between neurons, were found to eavesdrop on the messages they carried and to receive chemical signals from other cells.

19 July 2007, for National Geographic News

The rapid melt of small glaciers and mountain ice caps will be the main source of sea level rise over the next century, according to a new study.

The research, led by Mark Meier of the University of Colorado at Boulder, also suggests that sea levels could rise more during the 21st century than had previously been thought.

12 July 2007, for National Geographic News

The continuing battle between a butterfly and the bacteria that nearly wiped out all the insect species' males has taken a sudden and unexpected turn.

In just a few years, the butterfly has evolved a way to evade the bacteria's tightly controlling grip.

12 July 2007, for New Scientist

A new kind of "superlens", capable of focusing light to a spot far smaller than its own wavelength, could be far easier to build than other proposed designs, researchers say.

Traditional lenses are hampered by the "diffraction limit" – an effect that prevents them from focusing on anything that's much smaller than the wavelength of light. For visible light, this limit is around 600 nanometres. 

11 July 2007, for National Geographic News

A high-powered space telescope has caught what researchers are saying is the first clear sign of water on a planet outside our solar system.

The planet, known as HD 189733b, is a gas giant similar to Jupiter.

6 July 2007, for Science

Researchers are uncovering a wetter world under the Antarctic ice than they ever imagined. But it's far from clear which life forms call this extreme environment home

BIG SKY, MONTANA—Wetlands might seem incongruous in Antarctica's frozen wastes. But recent expeditions have uncovered a hidden landscape of lakes, marshes, and apparent rivers sandwiched between ice and rock. These vast wetlands, imprisoned under the ice, may even be teeming with life.

5 July 2007, for National Geographic News

The oldest known strands of DNA have been recovered from frozen mud taken from the base of Greenland's ice sheet, according to a new study.

The discovery could rewrite what was thought about Greenland's ecological past—and could alter current predictions about how global warming will affect the island's ice.

5 July 2007, for New Scientist

In his 1970's gender-bending phase, David Bowie would have made a pretty dubious computer avatar, a new study suggests.

The study reveals that androgynous digital personas (avatars) are perceived as less trustworthy than ones that are clearly either male or female.