A baby sits on the floor and reaches toward a red ball on the floor and grunts. The mother responds, "Do you see the ball?" She picks it up, holds it in front of the baby and says, "Do you want to hold the ball?" The baby shrieks in excitement as the mother hands the ball to
Readers of a certain age will remember a golden era of asteroid films, capped by two with very different endings. "Deep Impact" drove home the devastating consequences of letting a large piece of rock hit our planet, whereas "Armageddon," though arguably the kitschier of the
Quantum sensors, devices that collect measurements by exploiting quantum-mechanical phenomena, could potentially detect extremely weak magnetic, gravitational and electromagnetic signals with greater sensitivity than classical sensors. Some quantum sensors leverage
Nature has answered the same way for 3.5 billion years The post Is Immortality Possible? appeared first on Nautilus .
An air pollution monitoring network has provided one of the most detailed long-term views yet of the role of black carbon, or soot produced by fires, diesel vehicles and other combustion sources, in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. The detailed measurements show how pollution
Going back to school can be an exciting time for students from elementary school through college, whether it's finding the perfect outfit to wear on the first day, returning to campus or filling a chalkboard with career dreams.
A study examining how feral water buffalo interact with landscapes has uncovered the pest's disastrous impacts on northern long-necked turtles in the Top End's tropical wetlands.
Biologists, zoologists and psychologists have been trying to trace the origins of human language for centuries. One well-known theory, known as the social brain hypothesis, suggests that increasingly complex social lives prompted primates to evolve increasingly larger brains,
For decades, an influential theory blamed the Rapanui for their own downfall—a story made famous by Jared Diamond’s book Collapse . New evidence tells a different tale
Neuroscience is revealing how our brains are wired for narrative
A heavenly read; a 25-foot eye; a case of double personality
The conservative think tank’s report claims that high-intensity and elite sports training has lasting effects on menstrual cycles and fertility
Play this crossword inspired by the September 2026 issue of Scientific American
A recent change in ownership is an opportunity for SciAm to be even better and have some fun
Letters to the editors for the April 2026 issue of Scientific American
Here are four reasons solar energy has seen a meteoric rise in recent years
Soaring numbers of satellites could pose grave threats to the heavens above and our planet below
Zipline’s tethered delivery system lowers packages from the sky. Now it has to show that people want the service
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon launch to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter
Golden Dome’s most audacious element would require a vast constellation of weapons that does not yet exist. Defense companies are already lining up to build it
Companies are making big bets on technology to solve lingering challenges in the clean-energy rollout. Here are four of the most ambitious projects
We are rightfully told to eat more fiber. But our depleted gut microbiomes may not benefit from superhigh levels
Two American companies are pursuing rival manufacturing strategies for these long-promised cells in an industry China dominates
What if the secret to drought-resistant crops isn't how much water plants use, but when they use it? A new study identifies a daily window that could help breeders develop tomatoes that better withstand drought without sacrificing yield.
"WHALE AT ONE O'CLOCK!" Eager cruise passengers zipping around New York's southern shores rush to the starboard bow: A humpback whale is up for air, a breathtaking sighting set against Manhattan's iconic skyline.
The two largest reservoirs in the United States have fallen to record lows as a severe drought grips the country's West, according to data released over the weekend.
Borneo in Indonesia, home to pristine rainforest and protected species, is burning. Meteorologist Safillah Anggie Wahyuni hopes a solution lies in the clouds.
The threat that rising temperatures fueled by climate change pose to the health of older people has been dramatically underestimated, according to a U.S. modeling study published Tuesday.
An unstable mountain rock formation looming above the Swiss village of Kandersteg threatens a landslide that could rival the disaster that destroyed nearby Blatten last year, a collapse scientists linked to thawing permafrost and glacier dynamics.
A magnetar’s colossal magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago, in which seemingly empty space alters the behavior of light. If confirmed, the discovery could offer the first direct evidence of vacuum birefringence and
Einstein’s abandoned cosmological constant made a spectacular comeback when astronomers discovered that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. It now sits at the heart of our best cosmological model—a model that works extraordinarily well, yet may still be wrong.
Childhood criticism can leave people carrying a fear of failure long into adulthood, but new research suggests those emotional patterns may be surprisingly flexible. Young adults who revisited painful memories through imagery-based therapy showed lasting reductions in fear,
Kratom use and serious health problems linked to it have risen dramatically across the United States over the past decade. Poison center reports jumped from just 19 cases in 2010 to more than 1,200 in 2023, while severe outcomes—including life-threatening complications,
The Theban Necropolis, opposite Luxor, consists of more than 400 tombs. In a new Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology study, researchers in Spain examined part of one of these tombs—chamber three in tomb TT 209—to reconstruct how this burial space was used and reused between
People's ability to successfully navigate career changes depends on their adaptability and flexibility—skills that can be developed through training transition "muscles," according to Sarah Wittman, assistant professor of management at Costello College of Business and of
In humans and many other animals, a mother's age can affect the physical and behavioral characteristics of the next generation. Scientists call these changes maternal age effects, and while they are widespread across the animal kingdom, researchers still don't fully understand
For decades, the round goby has been one of the Great Lakes' most destructive invasive species. Scientists estimate its population numbers in the billions, making eradication unrealistic.
Research in the International Journal of Business Information Systems discusses a sector-specific framework to help telecommunications companies assess how effectively they use big data.
Scientists have long believed that tissue-resident memory T cells—which remain in tissues after an infection has cleared and respond rapidly if the threat returns—are shaped primarily by biochemical signals. A McGill University–led study has now uncovered a previously unknown
The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of living organisms contains regulatory elements that control when, where and to what extent specific genes are turned on or off. They can be co-opted to create "gene switches" that hold significant potential for understanding gene expression and
A new study by the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, published in Scientific Reports, offers an explanation for one of the striking differences between men and women: the evolutionary development of the modern human pelvis.
China's dominance of key green technologies is helping to subsidize the global transition to a low-carbon economy, but trade tensions could make it harder for other countries to meet their climate targets, according to a new report led by researchers at The University of
Red blood cells serve as the foundation for nanocarriers that show promise in a new study as effective and efficient vehicles for gene therapy, tumor targeting and other medical treatments. Scientists at The Ohio State University have showed that the engineered extracellular
From helping doctors detect cancer to guiding self-driving cars through traffic, many modern imaging systems rely on near-infrared light, producing a crisp picture when visible light would scatter and yield a blurry picture. But near-infrared systems struggle when light passes
You've probably seen it before: A native garden starts out lush and intentional, then slowly unravels. A meadow is overtaken by weeds. Native grasses are cut down to sad little stumps. A pollinator garden somehow loses its pollinators by year two. The vision was there. The
Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding
Scientists studying three artisan British cheeses found that the microbes responsible for their distinctive flavors may also offer surprising benefits for gut health. As the cheeses matured, helpful bacteria transformed their aromas and textures while potentially producing
A current system in the Atlantic Ocean that shapes regional climates and distributes ocean nutrients also serves as a control knob to help regulate temperatures across the planet, new research has found.
