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Mark Thiessen

Even the simplest touch to skin sets off neural messaging so complex that scientists are only beginning to mimic it through engineering. At the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, researchers are exploring an approach that uses what’s known as e-dermis: pressure-reactive layered material. When attached to prosthetic hands, like the one holding this e-dermis patch, the material helps turn contact with another surface into a sensation the brain interprets as touch.

Hannah LeBuhn, who suffers from pain in her jaw joints, watches the mesmerizing motion of jellyfish on a virtual reality headset in Luana Colloca's lab at the University of Maryland, College Park.

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On March 26, 2012, National Geographic Explorer at Large and filmmaker James Cameron successfully completed the first solo dive to Challenger Deep using a submersible he codesigned dubbed DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, shown here starting a test dive to 8,000 meters. During the expedition, which was conducted in partnership with National Geographic, Cameron documented his experience in high resolution and collected samples for study.

Isaiah Nengo is Director of Research and Science at the Turkana Basin Institute, part of New York’s Stony Brook University. He spends time each year working in his native Kenya.

Devastating wildfires continue to erupt around the world on an unprecedented scale, from the American west – where some of the world’s ancient redwoods stand in the way of flames – to Greece, Siberia and Australia. Here, a truck drives through wildfire near Seeley Lake, Montana, where a burn has jumped a road.

Tom (pictured above) is so ingenious—brainstorming with our photographers about what they want to do, and then turning those ideas into reality through mental imagination, research, 3-D computer design, rapid prototyping, and fabrication—that he is rarely without a solution.

The July 2008 issue told the stories of wildfires ravaging the western U.S. "Good" fires, like this one in Custer State Park, South Dakota, clear dead brush and return nutrients to the soil. But climate change and pests have intensified wildfires in recent years, causing them to spread wider and do more damage.

A piece of English ceramic from Site X may be part of a pot used by a survivor of the ill-fated colony.

Dogs, which evolved alongside humans for 10,000 years, are especially attuned to our emotions.