Scientific American Content: Global

The Draconids and Orionids both peak this month

“With today’s science we usually can’t show with high confidence that dangerous behavior isn’t there”

Francis Halzen is a leader in the study of neutrinos, ghostly particles from across the universe that hint at exciting new physics

In math and Mario Land, there are questions that are algorithmically undecidable, meaning they will demonstrably never have an answer

The country’s space program is new and ambitious, having already sent a mission into Mars orbit

Red and white dwarf stars may be hungrier than we thought

Movement and creativity go hand in hand. Scientists are working to discover why

Your feces can tell you a lot about your health

An El Niño–driven ocean surge threatens coastal flooding, researchers warn that a plan to loosen vaccine requirements will increase measles risks in Florida, and experts debunk a viral TikTok cold remedy

Karl Deisseroth, Georg Nagel and Peter Hegemann developed optogenetics, which uses light and genetics to control individual cells

Attachment is the term psychologists use for the most significant relationships that hold people’s lives together

Philosopher and 2026 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Felipe De Brigard explains how our brains use imagination to reconstruct the past

Pairing artificial intelligence with acoustic technology helped reveal an Etrurian tomb in new light

In the movie, a giant iceberg from Greenland floats into the sea, imperiling millions—but is that even possible?

So far this year has been ridiculously hot. If it stays that way, 2026 could set a sobering new record

An unexplained high-energy neutrino detected three years ago could be linked to a primordial black hole, perhaps one more even unusual than previously thought

The nonprofit start-up Pioneer Labs claims to have made the first-ever “microbe for Mars.” Other experts aren’t so sure

A future NASA telescope could spot atmospheric phenomena on planets orbiting other stars

Mathematicians have a new bucket list of open questions to chase

How foraging can change the way we think about food and nature

Project Suncatcher is aimed at testing Google's AI chips in the harsh environment of space

An analysis of ancient sea-level changes reveals that the whole solid Earth has shifted multiple times

Today Project Suncatcher is sending four AI processors into orbit on a SpaceX rocket to see whether the building blocks of a data center can survive space

Scientists are piecing together why elephants make these low calls and what they might mean

Scientific American spoke to the Michigan Senate candidate about how his background in medicine has shaped his outlook

As the planet changes, so will this nostalgia-triggering scent

The site, located on the island of Lismore, may have been established by Saint Mo Luóc in the sixth century C.E.

The new push loosens U.S. regulations for sterilizing spacecraft bound for the Red Planet and calls for modernizing the science of “planetary protection”

El Niño has stymied storm formation even more than forecasters expected

The satellite, Smile, is a joint European and Chinese mission to study space weather and geomagnetic storms above Earth

Saphier’s nomination now heads to the full Senate for a vote

Just days after a Fields Medalist predicted that an AI would solve the puzzle, Anthropic succeeded

How AI is transforming online romance scams, and what you can do to protect yourself

There’s little evidence that many IVF “add-on” treatments work. Should they even be offered?

This exposure reflects an intersection of climate change, air pollution and public health, says new analysis

The experimental weight-loss drug is a triple agonist and the first of its kind to reach a phase 3 clinical trial

Disorder, exotic shapes and great uncertainty: while mathematicians understand phenomena in low and high dimensions very well, the 4D world raises many questions

Juice is on its way to study Jupiter’s moons, with a little assist from Earth’s gravity

Elusive, satellite-stalking spacecraft could unleash space war—or help keep orbital peace

A new system sends faint electrical pulses through tissue instead of over Bluetooth. In rats, it made the animals flex one of their hind legs on cue when one of their front paws moved

Many cancers associated with infection are preventable

Starliner hasn’t flown since its failed 2024 mission left two astronauts onboard the International Space Station for 286 days

No, fermenting garlic in honey is not a replacement for antibiotic or antiviral meds

Environmental advocates have decried the move

Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider on Long Island have seen hints of a phase transition from the early universe

The world’s largest rocket successfully entered orbit for the first time—a milestone for SpaceX and a relief for future NASA moon missions

After transplant, young hearts in both mice and humans showed signs of accelerated aging in older bodies, while older hearts in younger bodies seemed rejuvenated

From the smallest building blocks of life to prehistoric vomit and a newly discovered amoeba that can really take the heat.

The beloved game arose out of the opposing forces of the U.S. and the Soviet Union

In 1872, New York’s devastating epizootic gave the ASPCA’s young founder a powerful moral argument for animal protection