We often think of intelligence as something that is fixed and stable. Intelligence, however, is fragile, malleable, and situational. It can be affected by your interpersonal chemistry with certain individuals, your perceived safety or belongingness, and what social psychologists refer to as “stereotype threat” —the anxiety associated with confirming negative (and sometimes positive) stereotypes about your social group.

The woman in charge of Canada’s particle accelerators can’t wait for the next big thing in high-energy physics to arrive. 

Biggest, most powerful, brightest: The machines used in particle physics earn their superlatives by cracking open the mysteries of the universe. By the end of 2012, experiments should confirm the existence of the Higgs boson—a theoretical particle that bestows other elementary particles with mass. The discoveries are profound, but the accelerators themselves are remarkable feats of engineering.

I am writing this letter to you after presenting to your Kindergarten classmates what I do for a living. You introduced me as a “publisher” to your classmates, but I am more of a writer than anything else. The “aha” moment for me that day had nothing to do with my presentation, but everything to do with what happened next. It was when your teacher, Mrs. Timpson, announced that “ants” would be the next topic for the class to cover. She announced to you, and the three girls who had stayed after class to talk about the next day’s assignments, that “it’s time for the teacher's favorite subject: Science!”

It’s no surprise that with the recent economic recession, scientific funding is going through a rough patch. A report  by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) shows that the NIH budget for 2012 was the lowest it’s been since 2001, and the number of grants funded by the NIH has declined every year since 2004. That means that a lot of important research goes unfunded, and the number of jobs needed to support that research dwindles.

The 20th century was unkind to Inuit language and culture, but now this educator is revitalizing it with digital tools. Interview by Sarah Jane Keller

Canada’s largest territory is almost entirely above the tree line, nearly roadless, and outlined by bays, inlets and fjords. Most of the 30,000 people who call Nunavut home are Inuit, descended from ancestors that survived in the Arctic for thousands of years. But the 20th century brought rapid change that threatened Inuit traditions, notably the culture's rich language.