Science Crossword: Cosmic Goals

Play this crossword inspired by the October 2024 issue of Scientific American | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

How Your Brain Tells Speech and Music Apart

Simple cues help people to distinguish song from the spoken word | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Why Are There Fewer Spotted Lanternflies in New York City?

Invasive spotted lanternflies are spreading across the metro areas of New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., despite professional and amateur attempts to reduce their numbers | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Quantum ‘Ghost Imaging’ Reveals the Dark Side of Plants

Entanglement lets researchers watch plants in action without disruptive visible light | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Why Early Prostate Cancer Screening Matters for Black Men

According to the American Cancer Society, Black men are about 70 percent more likely than white men to develop prostate cancer in their lifetime and twice as likely to die from the disease. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Mystery of Deep-Ocean ‘Biotwang’ Sound Has Finally Been Solved

A strange sound dubbed “biotwang” was first heard bouncing around the Mariana Trench 10 years ago, and scientists have finally figured out where it comes from | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Record-Breaking Rainfall in Carolinas and Europe Explained

On opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, Central Europe and North Carolina have both been drenched by torrential rains | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

The Next President Should End NASA’s Space Launch System Rocket

Rather than building an obsolescent, obscenely-over-budget jumbo rocket, NASA should turn to building truly innovative space technologies and plan a realistic lunar landing program | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Meet the Advocates and Researchers Revolutionizing Sickle Cell Care

These sickle cell researchers and advocates are driving change from labs to global stages, transforming lives in the process. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

New Sickle Cell Treatments Reach Patients after Years of Effort

The FDA recently approved three sickle cell drugs, and dozens more are in development | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Hidden Patterns Show Nobel Prize Science Trends

Time lags between discoveries and awards show how the Nobel Prizes reward science | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Math Puzzle: Find the Imposter Number

Can you find the number that doesn't belong? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Book Review: A Return to the Creepy Tensions of ‘Area X’

In Absolution, Jeff VanderMeer explores the mysteries in his Southern Reach Trilogy | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Poem: ‘D.N.A.’

Science in meter and verse | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

What Is Sickle Cell Disease?

You have around 35 trillion red blood cells moving around your body at all times. Typically they are rounded and flexible. What happens when they aren’t? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Book Review: Cryptography Is as Much an Art as a Science

A delightful course on keeping (and cracking) secrets | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Readers Respond to the May 2024 Issue

Letters to the editors for the May 2024 issue of Scientific American | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Being Empathetic Is Easier when Everyone’s Doing It

Research is revealing the key to motivating empathy—and making it stick | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Sitting in a Chair All Day Can Lead to Disease. Standing Up and Moving Around Every Hour Can Help

Days spent in a desk chair can lead to heart disease or cancer. Getting up often and exercising more vigorously can stave off the ill effects | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Contributors to Scientific American’s October 2024 Issue

Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Going Back to the Moon, Researching Chickadee Hybrids and Understanding Addiction

This month’s issue covers the reasons it’s so hard to go back to the moon, the science of empathy and new advances in treating sickle cell disease | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

New Sickle Cell Treatments Highlight the Power of Patient Perspectives

Illuminating the experience of people living with sickle cell could improve patients’ lives and enhance all of medicine | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Book Review: How One Weird Rodent Ecologist Tried to Change the Fate of Humanity

A biography of the scientist whose work led to fears of a ‘population bomb’ | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Hybrid Chickadees Reveal How Species Boundaries Can Shift and Blur

When different chickadee species meet, they sometimes choose each other as mates—with surprising results | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

October 2024: Science History from 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago

Best baseball batting order; mummies demystified | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Book Review: Powerful Myths Shape a Postapocalyptic World

In a postapocalyptic world on the verge of its next crisis, history gets rewritten | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

New Hope for Treating People with Sickle Cell Disease

Improving sickle cell care by expanding treatment options, advancing new therapies and amplifying the voices of people with the disease | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

New Treatments Address Addiction alongside Trauma

A new generation of treatments addresses the trauma that often underlies addiction | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Book Review: A Bold Profile of the James Webb Space Telescope

In Pillars of Creation, Richard Panek gets up close to the JWST | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

People Living with Sickle Cell Disease Share Their Experiences

Life expectancy for people with sickle cell in the U.S. has increased to about 50 years, but some people with the disease still face stigma and other barriers in health care | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Why Is It So Much Harder for NASA to Send People to the Moon Now Than It Was during the Apollo Era?

NASA's Artemis moon program faces challenges the Apollo missions never did | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

A Global Initiative to Advance Sickle Cell Research Could Benefit Millions

Increased funding and new public health policies for sickle cell research are needed to ease the burden on low-income nations and improve patient care | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Researchers Seek New Solutions to Ease Sickle Cell’s Extreme Pain

Sickle cell disease causes severe pain that’s hard to treat, but researchers are finding new ways to offer relief | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

The Arctic Seed Vault Shows the Flawed Logic of Climate Adaptation

The difficulties of the Svalbard seed repository illustrate why we need to prevent climate disaster rather than plan for it | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

How to Understand Your Child’s Screenings for Autism and Other Conditions

The predictive value of childhood screenings for autism and other conditions depends on how common the condition is, a limit that parents need to understand | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

The Brain Really Does Choke Under Pressure

Study links choking under pressure to the brain region that controls movement | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment

Kamala Harris has plans to improve health, boost the economy and mitigate climate change. Donald Trump has threats and a dangerous record | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Caterpillars Sense Hungry Wasps’ Electrical Field

Predators’ electricity gives caterpillars an early warning | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Understanding the Origins of Life on Earth Could Help Find Life beyond It

We can’t yet tell how life got its start on Earth. That’s one great reason to keep looking for life elsewhere | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

AI Could Help Save Us from Conspiracy Theories, and Massachusetts Could Help Save Us from Our Trash

AI fights conspiracy theories, Massachusetts leads the way on waste reduction, and more in this week’s science news roundup | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Summer 2024 Was the Hottest Ever Measured, Beating Last Year

The year 2024 could easily shape up to be the hottest ever measured, climate scientists say | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

A Huge Tsunami Caused by a Thinning Glacier Created a Seismic Event for Nine Days

Scientists have traced a baffling monotonous planetary hum that lasted for nine days back to a glacier in Greenland | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Elon Musk Owes His Success to Coming in Second Place

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, owes his superstar success to self-satisfied competitors who blew obvious opportunities | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Is a Supermoon Really Special?

Supermoons are popular in the media, but are they really so different from how our extraordinary moon ordinarily appears? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Astrophotography Tips from an Astronaut on the International Space Station

NASA flight engineer Matthew Dominick’s astrophotography helps us see our world—from space. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

The Devil in the Details, Chapter One: The Doctor Who Said No to Thalidomide

Starting with her rejection of an FDA application for thalidomide in 1960, physician and pharmacist Frances Oldham Kelsey took a stand against the now infamous drug | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Scientists Will Engineer the Ocean to Absorb More Carbon Dioxide

A research consortium plans to revive geoengineering trials of the controversial iron fertilization technique to pull carbon dioxide from the air, despite public backlash | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago

Polaris Dawn Astronauts Perform First Private Spacewalk in a Stellar Success for SpaceX

The world’s first commercial space walk, by billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, tested new technology and was practically flawless | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 2 months ago