Fall 2026 · Frontiers of research
New Frontiers in the Capital.
A mission to Venus, antibiotics that choose their targets, algae that dance and a new look at Alzheimer’s.
The Catalyst · Every edition
The Editions. Our reporting, season by season.
Every season, our student journalists take one idea and follow it through the labs, clinics and classrooms of Washington, D.C. Here is each edition, from our first issue in winter 2025 to the one now in the works.
Read the current edition
2026
Two editions · Spring and Fall
Spring 2026 · Memory, AI & microbes
Minds, Machines & Microbes in the Capital.
Memory and misfolded proteins, AI in the classroom and the kitchen, microbes that help life adapt, and the physics of protons.
2025
Where it started · Winter, Spring and Fall
Fall 2025 · Health & neuroscience
Health & the Mind in the Capital.
Mental health care, myasthenia gravis and demyelination, a brain that edits reality and robots that operate.
Spring 2025 · Genes, energy & ideas
Discovery in the Capital.
Genes, fuels and big ideas: evolution, cleaner energy, paradoxes and the way science talks to the public.
Winter 2025 · The first edition
Science in the Capital.
Where The Catalyst began: the researchers, labs and questions that make Washington a science city.
The next edition
Already being reported. Want to be in it?
Every edition is written, edited and designed by students. Pitch us a story, or read everything we have published between editions.