Scientific American

Despite the death of a worker at a Russian plague lab, there are important reasons why we'll probably never see an event like the Black Death again. sciam.com/article/why-...

Anthropic's S-1 filing offers a glimpse at how the start-up hopes to balance AI discovery and emerging threats: “Moving quickly brings AI’s benefits sooner, but moving too quickly could outrun the world’s ability to make AI systems safe.” sciam.com/article/anth...

When a 43-year-old man presented with a high fever, fatigue and muscle pain, doctors were stumped—until they did lung scans. A round blotch in his right lung led them to test for an unusual disease: psittacosis, or parrot fever sciam.com/article/how-...

Plans to put U.S. data centers underwater are alarming ecologists: the noise and heat that annoy people could also stress endangered whales sciam.com/article/unde...

From cartwheeling snakes to confident preschoolers and missions to Mars, this week’s Science Quickly roundup covers recent science, including on animals, big and small. sciam.com/podcast/epis...

Do you feel horrified by clusters of holes or circles? You may have trypophobia. Once dismissed as an Internet meme gone too far, now researchers are homing in on what may be driving this aversion—is it disgust, or fear? sciam.com/article/what...

A linguist explains how politicians' accents reflect their worldview—and the message they want to convey to voters sciam.com/article/why-...

Why is social media so hard to put down? Join Scientific American associate editor Allison Parshall and neuroscientist Eva Telzer on November 5 for a live discussion exploring the science behind social media addiction. www.bigmarker.com/labx-media-g...

With less than a year to go before the planned launch of Artemis III, NASA leaders laid out a packed schedule for the mission, including three rocket launches that will send the Orion capsule and two lunar landers into orbit sciam.com/article/nasa...

Think Captain America but for dogs. The start-up Warhound wants to create a new class of military superdogs using cloning and genetic engineering. We asked scientists what they think. sciam.com/article/warh...

Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s… A flying black triangle swooping through a canyon and spooking multiple federal agents? The U.S. government’s latest “UFO files” release includes this odd report, and more. sciam.com/article/stra...

The Pentagon has granted the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a controversial and little-used “heat ray” weapon at the U.S.-Mexico border, prompting questions over how safe it is and how it works sciam.com/article/the-...

ICYMI, this from yesterday—I like calling it “The Blowup”—may well be the most definitive, accessible account we’ll ever get of the behind-the-scenes details of the race between mathematicians and AI to solve Navier-Stokes, one of math’s hardest problems. The tale isn’t as simple as you might think.

“We know that what exacerbates anxiety is avoidance. Exposure therapy helps develop new, healthier relationships with your anxieties by breaking the avoidance habit.” sciam.com/article/how-...

Mars has two weird moons, Phobos and Deimos. Are they captured asteroids? Are they impact-ejected chips off the ol’ Martian block? No one knows, but Japan’s just launched MMX mission should find out—and the answers could rewrite the Red Planet’s history. sciam.com/article/japa...

What is an “ultraprocessed” food? The answer may depend on who you ask. sciam.com/article/rfk-...

Moderna-Merck clinical trial data for an mRNA-based skin cancer vaccine leaked on social media on Thursday. Here’s what the data actually show: sciam.com/article/here...

Calley Means, a senior adviser to RFK, Jr., and a key figure in the Make America Healthy Movement, announced his resignation on Thursday. Means has drawn fire for his promotion of drinking raw milk and opposition to COVID vaccine mandates. sciam.com/article/rfk-...

A new implant the size of a USB stick zaps glucose in the blood, potentially providing a new way to manage diabetes. Early results in mice are promising. sciam.com/article/this...

What is inarguable is that, like them or not, data centers are increasingly important parts of our lives, and they’re increasingly seen as fair targets in war. How they are secured is a matter of national—and even international—importance sciam.com/article/data...

What really happened when AI beat human mathematicians to solve the infamous Navier-Stokes problem? The full story—of trillion-dollar companies, ingenious agent swarms, and all-too-human foibles—is a troubling portent of math’s future. sciam.com/article/the-...

The constellation in Van Gogh’s The Starry Night may be based on a real cluster of stars in the Taurus constellation. Researchers make a compelling case with evidence from astronomy, weather analysis and Van Gogh’s letters. sciam.com/article/astr...

Fusion plasma can go haywire without warning. One researcher calls the problem “kind of existential.” A new superconducting AI chip kept up with a million tokamak data samples per second. The catch: so far it’s only seen recordings, never the live plasma. sciam.com/article/new-...

Around 5,000 years ago a mysterious woman was given a royal burial in ancient Egypt. Now, after years of debate, scientists reveal that she was the civilization’s first female king sciam.com/article/anci...

The National Science Foundation, one of the largest funders of research in the U.S., has been rocked by firings and budget cuts during the second Trump administration. Now, it is reportedly set to lose its leader at the end of the year sciam.com/article/nati...

A cyclone in the Philippine Sea has reached wind speeds of about 185 miles per hour—setting a record for the strongest storm of 2026, forecasters say sciam.com/article/supe...

The biggest “land rush” of the 21st century is underway—but not on Earth. The U.S. and China are now clamoring to build moon bases at the lunar south pole. But the Moon’s riches reach well beyond there. A new report flags where else astronauts should go. sciam.com/article/repo...

You’ll never hold antimatter in your hand: the stuff annihilates upon contact with matter. But physicists have now managed to trap a single particle of it for a month—and the feat could help solve one of the universe’s deepest mysteries. sciam.com/article/phys...

For all the night owls out there, the Orionids meteor shower is here to light up the dark October sky. The shower peaks on October 21-22, with the best chance of catching a shooting star after 3 A.M. sciam.com/article/see-...

Republican congressional candidate Tom Stalcup, who holds a Ph.D. in physics, is facing a steep climb in a blue district. In an interview, he criticizes his party’s stance on climate change and accuses both parties of putting politics before science. sciam.com/article/repu...

What can an alien slime mold teach us about being human? Annalee Newitz’s new book, A Wall Is Also a Road, tries to find out. Tune in to her conversation about consciousness, alien life and the things that we get wrong when we talk about Pompeii.   sciam.com/podcast/epis...

Christina Applegate just revealed that she was misdiagnosed with MS in 2021—experts explain why this kind of mistake can happen much more often than you think sciam.com/article/chri...

A National Science Foundation grant that helps researchers buy scientific equipment was supposed to open for submissions on October 15. But the date has come and gone, leaving scientists in the dark sciam.com/article/scie...

It’s not easy being green if you’re a star—but it’s not impossible, either. A new study of white dwarfs reveals these strange stars can display many odd colors: yellow, pink, purple or even a subtle shade of chartreuse. sciam.com/article/gree...

50 years ago The Selfish Gene became an instant bestseller, bringing evolutionary biology back into cultural conversation and catapulting its author, Richard Dawkins, to global fame. Yet today scientists are still debating its core message. sciam.com/article/the-...

Here’s why physicists are taking this once-fringe multiverse theory seriously. sciam.com/article/why-...

Your brain is a prediction machine. Can it cope with a world in chaos? sciam.com/article/how-...

Scientists who previously worked on fusion inside the U.S. nuclear labs and their colleagues built the private company Pacific Fusion. Now the government is turning to their new machines for help conducting research on its nuclear arsenal. sciam.com/article/how-...

Come dig into the SciAm archives with us. This month a few of our favorite gems from past November issues include a look at the evidence for life on Mars and our 1876 editors’ exploration of “reprehensible” deception among artificial butter sellers. sciam.com/article/nove...

The ocean’s size makes oceanic carbon removal an enticing method to battle climate change. But researchers are finding that once treated seawater disperses into currents and tides, proving how much CO₂ was removed becomes enormously difficult. sciam.com/article/insi...

A radical new theory about energy and mitochondria could explain chronic disease and aging. sciam.com/article/the-...

The algorithms that run your feeds on social media are like “heat-seeking missiles that identify psychological vulnerability,” one psychologist told SciAm associate editor Allison Parshall. sciam.com/article/our-...

Social media addiction is real. Here’s how to get sober. sciam.com/article/were...

Have you ever wondered how uranium enrichment actually works? These graphics explain all. sciam.com/article/a-gr...

Read an original poem about the mathematical power of the number two. sciam.com/article/poem...

Play this crossword inspired by the November 2026 issue of Scientific American. sciam.com/article/scie...

The universe’s biggest explosions are a puzzle, and understanding what powers them could rewrite physics. sciam.com/article/thes...

Are ultraprocessed foods really bad for you? New evidence suggests the “processing” isn‘t the problem. sciam.com/article/what...

Check out how readers responded to our June 2026 issue and other SciAm content in the November 2026 Letters column. sciam.com/article/read...

An AI model can predict whether you’re likely to die of cancer from a single photo of your face, according to new research. sciam.com/article/can-...