Chandrayaan-3 Makes Historic Touchdown on the Moon

The successful lunar landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission makes India only the fourth country to achieve the feat | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Here's How You Go Birding in the Middle of the Night

If you really want to challenging your bird identification skills, try using them at night, when bird calls are less than 100 milliseconds long. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Here's How You Go Birding in the Middle of the Night

If you really want to challenging your bird identification skills, try using them at night, when bird calls are less than 100 milliseconds long. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Some Surprising Places Are at Risk of Devastating Urban Wildfires like Maui's

Hundreds of communities across the U.S.—many in unexpected places—are at risk from an urban wildfire like the one that tore through the Hawaiian town of Lahaina | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

As Heat Waves Roast Texas, Batteries Keep Power Grid Humming

A surge in battery storage is helping Texas beat the heat without additional fossil fuels | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

No One Studied Menstrual Product Absorbency Realistically until Now

A new study reveals the absorbency of pads, tampons and other menstrual products is significantly different than labels suggest | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

How a Color-Changing Hogfish Knows whether Its Skin Is White, Brown or Polka-Dotted

A hogfish may provide the first example of a vertebrate with light-detecting receptor molecules that reside outside the central nervous system | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Turtle Shells Record Nuclear History

Minuscule amounts of uranium detected in the shells of turtles point to a new way to track such materials’ impacts on people and ecosystems | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Cells Discovered Making 'Dark Oxygen' Underground

A chemical trick for making oxygen can sustain whole underground ecosystems | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

We Need Comprehensive Illicit Drug Analysis Now to Stop Overdose Deaths

More than 100,000 Americans die every year from drug overdoses. We should warn people in real time about dangerous adulterants in the illicit drug market | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Can Dogs Use Language?

The “button dogs” of TikTok seem to be learning human words. What’s really going on? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Fountains of Diamonds Erupt as Supercontinents Break Up

Researchers have discovered a pattern where diamonds spew from deep beneath Earth’s surface in huge, explosive volcanic eruptions | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Why a Highly Mutated Coronavirus Variant Has Scientists on Alert

Research is under way to determine whether the mutation-laden lineage BA.2.86 is nothing to worry about — or has the potential to spread globally | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Disappearing Glaciers Expose Vast New Ecosystems That Need Protection

New habitats that are emerging as mountain glaciers melt away represent huge ecological shifts and present new challenges for conservation | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Americans Have Breathed More Wildfire Smoke in Eight Months Than in Entire Years

Smoke from wildfires that have been exacerbated by climate change is complicating the picture of air pollution in the U.S. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Worm Brains, Decoded like Never Before, Could Shed Light on Our Own Mind

One of the most in-depth catalogs of an animal’s brain-body connections ever compiled ties neural activity to roundworm behavior | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

The Dangers of Wildfire Smoke

Climate change is making wildfires more likely and more intense, exposing more people to dangerous wildfire smoke. Scientists are continuing to learn how much damage that smoke can do to the environment and human health | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Russia's Luna-25 Lander Has Crashed into the Moon

Luna-25, Russia's first moon mission in nearly a half-century, was the vanguard of a planned series of lunar probes | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Getting Closer to Eliminating the Wild Poliovirus

Global efforts to eradicate the poliovirus were recently described as unsuccessful—yet Afghanistan and Pakistan are now on the verge of eliminating it | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Using Human-Sized Microphones and Hay Bales, They Unlocked the Mysteries of Bird Migration

For thousands of years, no one truly knew how birds migrated—that is until a few unlikely pioneers sat, with hundreds of pounds of kludged together recording gear, in an empty field waiting to hear sounds that no one had ever captured | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

The Fast, Furious and Brutally Short Life of an African Male Lion

From the moment a male lion is born it faces a gauntlet of challenges, ranging from snakebite to infanticide | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Lessons from Antarctica about Raising Kids in the Climate Crisis

Horror stories from Indigenous writers, a plea for better road ecology, and more books out now | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

A Heroic Effort Aims to Save Florida's Coral Reefs from Record Heat

As waters off Florida hit abnormally hot temperatures, volunteer divers are rescuing corals to ride out the heat wave in giant tanks on land | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Science News Briefs from around the World: September 2023

Ancient poop pathogens in Israel, Peru’s millennia-old El Niño preparations, a halt to Icelandic whale hunting, and much more in this month’s Quick Hits | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Will Scientists Ever Find a Theory of Everything?

Physicists are on an ever urgent quest to find a fuller understanding of what makes the cosmos tick, which they call a theory of everything | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Hurricane Hilary Brings Major Flood Risks to U.S. Southwest

Hurricane Hilary is set to cause torrential rains and flooding in the desert Southwest. It could even potentially bring California its first direct hit from a tropical storm since 1939 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Poems: 'Water Striders' and 'Fallowing'

Science in meter and verse | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Extreme Heat Can Ruin Your Road Trip. Here's How to Prepare

Soaring temperatures fueled by climate change are contributing to buckling highways, ruptured tires and impaired visibility from wildfire smoke | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Ötzi the Iceman Gets a New Looks from Genetic Analysis

Improved DNA analysis has updated thinking on the skin color, ancestry, and more of the alpine mummy known as Ötzi the Iceman | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Hearing Aids May Lower Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia

As few as 15 percent of people who would benefit from hearing aids use them | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

The Youth Mental Health Crisis Worsens amid a Shortage of Professional Help Providers

In October 2021 a national emergency in child mental health was declared. Since then the crisis has only gotten worse | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Rare 'Pinwheel' Stars Are a Beautiful Astronomical Puzzle

The doomed class of stars named Wolf-Rayets produce mysterious pinwheel shapes | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Can Russia's Luna-25 Moon Mission Transcend Earthly Politics?

In the latest chapter of an ongoing “moon rush,” Russia’s Luna-25 mission will attempt the nation’s first lunar landing in nearly 50 years | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Can Russia's Luna-25 Moon Mission Transcend Earthly Politics?

In the latest chapter of an ongoing “moon rush,” Russia’s Luna-25 mission will attempt the nation’s first lunar landing in nearly 50 years | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

They Tap Into the Magical, Hidden Pulse of the Planet, But What is the Nighttime Bird Surveillance Network?

On any given night, dense clouds of dark, ghostly figures pass over your head as you sleep. Maybe you never knew they were there, but there are people out there who are deciphering all the unseen movement that happens amid the darkness | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Math's 'Hairy Ball Theorem' Has Surprising Implications

Here’s what the hairiest problem in math can teach us about wind, antennas and nuclear fusion | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Fossils Buried in LA Tar Pit Show Why Saber-Toothed Cats Blinked Out of Existence

At Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits, scientists found they could watch large mammals disappear from the fossil record—and could trace the ecosystem through the catastrophe | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

This Bizarre Star Could Become One of the Strongest Magnets in the Universe

Magnetars possess magnetic fields that are trillions of times stronger than those of ordinary stars. Now we might have seen one of these extraordinary objects about to form | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Overwhelming Heat This Summer Could Kill Twice as Many People as Usual

Extreme temperatures across the U.S. have put the elderly, outdoors workers and people with no access to cool air at the greatest risk of severe heat-related illnesses or even death | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Car Thieves Can Hack into Today's Computerized Vehicles

To steal cars that rely on remotes and computer networks, thieves are trading their pry bars for laptops and wireless devices | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

She Helped Build the Atomic Bomb to Stop the Nazis, But Was Haunted by What It Did to Japan

Here’s the story of the Lilli Hornig, the only female scientist named in the film Oppenheimer. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

What Happens when People with Dementia Commit Crimes?

When criminal behavior overlaps with degenerative cognitive disease, the justice system often falters | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

How Recommendation Algorithms Work--And Why They May Miss the Mark

Huge data sets and matrices help online companies predict what you will click next | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

How to Survive Mercury in Retrograde

If you want to make it through the trials and tribulations of Mercury in retrograde, it’s easy: don’t do anything. You’ll be fine | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Arecibo Observatory Shuts Down Its Science

Although Arecibo Observatory is slated to become an education center, astronomers hope research might one day return to the site | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Hearing Aids Stave Off Cognitive Decline

Hearing aids may help maintain better brain functions in older people, and better health overall. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

The Grand Canyon Is Getting Even Hotter and More Dangerous

A new study finds that heat-related illness incidents will soar alongside temperatures inside the famed Grand Canyon National Park | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago

Why Hair Turns Curly and Frizzy in the Summer, according to Chemistry

A chemist breaks down how hair follicles respond to summer heat and humidity | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 7 months ago