Scientific American Content: Global

A vitriolic war of words between President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk could have profound repercussions for the nation’s civil and military space programs

Investigations by the Japanese company ispace identified issues with speed and an altitude sensor that likely doomed the lander

The world's leading mathematicians were stunned by how adept artificial intelligence is at doing their jobs

With wildfires turning forests into “massive carbon emitters,” planting trees in some places could inadvertently increase carbon emissions, a new report says

The White House’s budget plan for NASA would be woefully inadequate for achieving near-term human voyages to Mars, experts say

A curious celestial phenomenon known as the analemma is a reflection of Earth’s orbit and tilted axis

What happens when the U.S.’s most trusted source of extreme weather alerts can’t staff the night shift?

Nearly 600 employees left the National Weather Service or were fired in recent months. Meteorologists say 125 expected new hires will still leave the agency dangerously understaffed

Scientists have captured the first videos of wild roundworms forming living, wriggling towers that behave as one big superorganism

Science communicator Hank Green explains how our species’ unique intelligence got us into this climate mess—and how it will help us solve it

A 40-year-old conjecture on shapes’ cross sections is finally proven

Layoffs and funding freezes have gutted the CDC’s response to the opioid crisis—just as harm reduction was beginning to work

Surveys show that how nuclear strike options are presented strongly influences the decision a president may make

The velvet worm’s extraordinary goo could inspire recyclable bioplastics

Scientists are rallying to reverse ruinous proposed cuts to both NASA and the National Science Foundation

NASA has quietly taken steps to prepare for a death in space. We need to ask how nations will deal with this inevitability now, as more people start traveling off the planet

Nothing in the cosmos is in equilibrium, which means entropy is on the rise

Government layoffs threaten to make it easier for the Trump administration to ditch draft heat safety regulations

Even how matter exists in the first place is a mystery to physicists

Temperatures are rising, and so are mental health risks

Neuroscientists can now make precise genetic tweaks to the neurons that are most affected by brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and ALS

Thanks to faulty artificial intelligence, deepfakes and plain bad actors, children encounter a lot on the Internet that isn’t true. Here’s how to help them spot it

The Haenyeo, an all-female group of divers on South Korea’s Jeju Island, spend much of their lives underwater without equipment—a “superpower” that may be written into their DNA

Reducing the copies of one gene in the bubonic plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, made it less deadly but potentially more transmissible

Electric vehicles leave behind mountains of dead lithium-ion batteries. A new “injection” brings them back to life

It’s one step forward and two steps back for vaccine policy in the U.S. Plus, we discuss the fishy origins of sensitive teeth and megalodon diets.

Clouds of dust blown off the Saharan Desert into the southeastern U.S. could affect local weather and make sunrises and sunsets particularly vivid

Climate change and thawing permafrost play a role in destabilizing glaciers

The House of Representatives’ first caucus to address extreme heat is being launched by a Democrat from the Southwest and a Republican from the Northeast

Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site turned company town in South Texas, faces local opposition from residents outside the city limits

Predictions for an above-average number of storms, communities that are still recovering and cuts to the National Weather Service have meteorologists and other experts worried about this hurricane season

Doppler radar is one of the most revolutionary and lifesaving tools of modern meteorology, which has experts worried about outages because of recent staffing cuts and conspiracy theories

Telescopes in space give us a view we literally cannot get from the ground

Young people are struggling; retirees are happier than employees; people in partnerships are flourishing more than those who are single. Hear the first takeaways from the Global Flourishing Study.

Oil industry opposition to a planned OSHA rule to limit heat deaths comes as oil and gas workers face increasingly dangerous conditions

British climbers recently reached the top of Mount Everest in record time. They inhaled xenon gas before the trip. But was that the decisive factor?

Since 1966 NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has been at the forefront of Earth and planetary science from its location in upper Manhattan. Now a Trump administration directive is ejecting its scientists to parts unknown

A celestial object some 15,000 light-years away is emitting bright flashes of radio and X-rays that scientists are struggling to explain

The largest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built is meant to be a key part of SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars—and NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon, too

YouTube star Derek Muller built an 18-million-subscriber YouTube empire by challenging misconceptions about science. Now his own blood test and a sudden EPA reversal give his work urgent relevance.

The latest version of Grok, the chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, is promoting fringe climate viewpoints in a way it hasn’t done before, observers say

A new telescope project called the Next-Generation Very Large Array will revolutionize radio astronomy if it gets the funding it needs

A new study suggests a way to more accurately test sperm health from home.

Behavioral ecologist David Hughes, who consulted on the video game that inspired the hit TV show The Last of Us, speaks about how our experience with the COVID pandemic changed the way we relate to zombie fiction

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by the House of Representatives last week, would slow efforts to green the energy system as climate change accelerated

Ministrokes, also known as transient ischemic attacks, can eventually lead to cognitive declines as steep as those that follow a full-on stroke, new research finds

Fifty years ago the movie Jaws scared beachgoers and demonized sharks. Now, however, the public is evolving a better understanding

Research has shown ways parents can help children cope with the stressors of modern life

Straight out of science fiction, these contact lenses convert infrared light into visible light that humans can see

As hurricane season approaches, thousands of weather and disaster experts have raised concerns about NOAA and NWS budget cuts and staffing shortages