Could Earth have seeded Jupiter's moon Europa with bacterial life, where it could have taken hold in Europa's ocean and perhaps evolved into something more? That's the hypothesis of a new paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology by Zaza Osmanov of the Free University
One of the hardest things to calculate for an asteroid is its mass—but it is such a critical feature. It determines how much of an impact it would have if it hits something, or how many resources are potentially available on it. But to accurately measure it, we typically use
Our search for technosignatures—clear signs of advanced civilizations beyond Earth—takes many forms. Many are driven by the famous Drake equation, which attempts to estimate how many technological civilizations there are in the Milky Way. However, there's a big fat question
For a frog no bigger than a fingernail, survival depends on how it spends every bit of energy. New research from the University of Florida shows that young frogs prioritize growing quickly even when infected with a deadly pathogen, shifting energy toward immune defense only
Viking 1 kicked off the search for Martian life 50 years ago. Now NASA’s shifting priorities are putting the quest in limbo.
At the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Bielefeld University is looking for fans of all national teams. The Football Fever Study uses smartwatch data to record how match events affect fans' heart rates and stress levels. Anyone wearing a device from one of 13 supported brands,
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have created an open database with 124 carbon-14-dated samples that have made it possible to construct the chronological sequence of 380 sites located in the Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici National Park. The
A new telemetry study published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences finds that the method used to raise juvenile lake sturgeon before stocking has little bearing on how the fish behave after release—an important finding for ongoing efforts to restore the
Researchers are celebrating the release of the once locally extinct burrowing bettong back into the NSW desert—with the aim of training them to survive alongside feral cats and foxes.
Italian astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform polarimetric observations of the star WRAY 15-1880 and its young circumstellar disk. Results of the new observations, presented June 10 on the arXiv preprint server, suggest that this disk may host a
A newly established alliance, comprising leading researchers and conservation experts, has mobilized to safeguard the Atlantic Ocean's leatherback turtle populations. The Wilkes Atlantic Leatherback Turtle Alliance is led by the University of Exeter, with more than 50 partner
Scientists have modeled the potential size of this current outbreak, which some experts think could become one of the worst Ebola epidemics on record
While Reno families were celebrating the 1997 New Year, the Truckee River was surging into the city's downtown streets. A rainstorm was falling on the Sierra Nevada's deep snowpack, melting it rapidly and creating a hazardous situation for downstream communities.
As public trust in the U.S. Supreme Court continues to fall, new research from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania finds that jury service is associated with more positive attitudes toward courts and judges—but that Americans'
Writing with AI can look deceptively simple. Effortless, even. Type in a prompt and a polished paragraph appears in seconds. Tidy, confident, clean. But that apparent ease is also deceiving, says Abram Anders, associate professor of English and the Jonathan Wickert Professor of
Astronomers have detected one of the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever seen from a distant supermassive black hole. Using XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, a team studied a hyper-luminous quasar at cosmic noon and found two distinct wind components blasting away from the black hole,
Find the lengths of the sides of the square in this math puzzle
It was something infectious disease expert Heather Ferguson never expected to see in her lifetime: a mosquito-borne virus originally from Africa spreading in Scotland.
The Department of Energy bills Genesis as an AI push for scientific discovery. Its first public challenges tell a different story
Play this crossword inspired by the July/August 2026 issue of Scientific American
Letters to the editors for the March 2026 issue of Scientific American
A meditation on life and the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics
Natural fission reactor uncovered; geometry of soap bubbles
In his final interview, the “swashbuckling” geneticist pointed the way for science
These young scientists are making waves in their own ways. Keep an eye on them—great things are ahead
It’s a complicated time to be a young scientist in America. Lessons from history can tell us what the future might hold
The great American brain drain could define science for a generation
Despite funding woes, American scientists are finding reasons for optimism
Scientists are seen as oddballs, and that’s a problem
The federal funding system for scientific research in the U.S. is crumbling. Here’s how it can be rebuilt
Robots and AI are running experiments around the clock, from battery chemistry to cancer therapies. But can they be trusted to get it right?
Scientific American used expert recommendations and data analysis to identify 28 exceptional early-career researchers
Some countries have seen a stark decline in academic freedom over the past decade
Creating techniques to allow scientists to see biological processes in real time