Rural Children Now Grow Slightly Taller than City Children in Wealthy Countries

A new international study finds that the growth and development benefits of children living in cities may have diminished in the past two decades | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Recent Gamma-Ray Burst May Be the Brightest Ever Seen

The “absolutely monstrous” cosmic blast is estimated to be a 1-in-10,000-year event | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

FEMA Will Give Extra Money to States for Low-Carbon Rebuilding after Disasters

As part of its effort to prod the construction industry to go green, the Biden administration is providing new funding for rebuilding with low-carbon materials after disasters | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Bacterial 'Nanosyringe' Could Deliver Gene Therapy to Human Cells

This novel injection system could help advance gene therapy by nimbly inserting gene-editing enzymes into a variety of cell types | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Asteroid Didymos May Spin So Fast It Flings Rocks into Space

The asteroid Didymos witnessed its companion get slammed by NASA’s DART spacecraft, and Didymos itself may have interesting activity | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Mysterious Microbes in Earth's Crust Might Help With the Climate Crisis

Wherever we dig and however deep we dig we find microscopic living organisms. Could they eat the carbon we're pumping into the air? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Nationwide Effort to Track Abortions Found Thousands Fewer People Got Them after Dobbs

The end of Roe reshaped abortion access across the U.S. What does it take to track those changes? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

JWST Sees No Atmosphere on 'Earthlike' TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanet

TRAPPIST-1b is probably an airless rock, but the same may not be true for its six Earth-sized siblings | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

How the Gun Became Integral to the Self-Identity of Millions of Americans

The firearm as a totemlike symbol of personal identity emerged from the psychological insecurities of former enslavers after the Civil War | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Long COVID's Roots in the Brain: Your Health Quickly, Episode 3

Post-COVID symptoms can linger for months or years, and more and more evidence points to problems with the nervous system. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

I Gave ChatGPT an IQ Test. Here's What I Discovered

The chatbot was the ideal test taker—it exhibited no trace of test anxiety, poor concentration or lack of effort—and what about that IQ score? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Smell-Loss Tests Could Reveal Health Problems

Unlike other senses, smell is not something doctors routinely test for—but some scientists think that should change | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Why Primates (Including Humans) Love to Spin Ourselves around until We All Fall Down

The menagerie that twirls and twirls includes gorillas, bonobos and, yes, us humans | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Cases of a Drug-Resistant Fungus Tripled During the COVID Pandemic

Stress on health care facilities might have accelerated outbreaks of the hard-to-treat yeast Candida auris | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Wearable Brain Devices Will Challenge Our Mental Privacy

A new era of neurotechnology means we may need new protections to safeguard our brains and mental experiences | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Millions of People Living with HIV Are Alive, Thanks to a 20-Year Public Health Effort

Being infected with HIV is no longer a terminal diagnosis, but researchers are looking to fill the gaps that remain to ensure treatment reaches all who need it | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

If AI Starts Making Music on Its Own, What Happens to Musicians?

Music made with artificial intelligence could upend the music industry. Here’s what that might look like. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Fewer Doctors Are Choosing To Go Into Emergency Medicine

Hundreds of unfilled residency spots in emergency medicine are telling us that critical care is in trouble | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Earthquake Debris Could Create an Environmental Catastrophe in Türkiye and Syria

After recent earthquakes, Türkiye and Syria continue to grapple with a mass of rubble that could pollute, poison and alter the lives of everyone around it | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

IPCC Report Will Likely Shake Up U.N. Climate Talks

Scientists say countries need to cut emissions far deeper to prevent catastrophic warming. That fact will hang over delegates when they meet later this year at the annual U.N. climate talks | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Scientists Look for Toxins from East Palestine Derailment in Ohio

East Palestine residents are looking to independent researchers to fill gaps left by authorities about the toxic chemicals that could be affecting people after a train derailment | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Mysteriously Young 'Peekaboo' Galaxy Could Reveal Secrets of Early Universe

A strange discovery could provide a window into the universe’s earliest galaxies | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Music-Making Artificial Intelligence is Getting Scary Good

Google’s new AI model can generate entirely new music from text prompts. Here’s what they sound like. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Eye Drops Recalled after Deaths and Blindness--Here's What to Know

Here’s how to tell whether your eye drops are safe to use and how to recognize a potential infection | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

There Is Still Plenty We Can Do to Slow Climate Change

While it may seem daunting, there are still many things we can do individually to slow climate change | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Climate Change Is Destabilizing Insurance Industry

Insurers face a “crisis of confidence” as global warming makes weather events unpredictable and increases damage | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Top Math Prize Awarded for Describing the Dynamics of the Flow of Rivers and the Melting of Ice

Argentine mathematician Luis Caffarelli has won the 2023 Abel Prize for making natural phenomena more understandable and eliminating dreaded “infinities” from a calculation | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

The World Faces a Water Crisis and 4 Powerful Charts Show How

Hundreds of millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation. Will the first U.N. conference on water in nearly 50 years make a difference? | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Mathematician Wins Abel Prize for 'Smooth' Physics

Luis Caffarelli’s work includes equations underpinning physical phenomena, such as melting ice and flowing liquids | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Beethoven's Cause Of Death Revealed From Locks Of Hair

DNA from locks of Beethoven’s hair reveals how the composer died, but his hearing loss remains a mystery | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Mitochondria Transplants Save Rats from Cardiac Arrest

A new study in rats suggests “powerhouse” organelles could help heal not only hearts but other organs damaged by lack of oxygen during cardiac arrest | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Was 'Oumuamua, the First Known Interstellar Object, Less Weird Than We Thought?

A new study suggests that ’Oumuamua, the mysterious visitor that whizzed through our solar system in 2017, may have been merely a small comet from another star | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

'Plasticosis' in Seabirds Could Herald New Era of Animal Disease

Ocean animals are growing sicker from ingesting too much plastic | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Use Nature as Infrastructure

In the climate crisis, wetlands have more economic value than new development | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Health Research Is Needed Now before Sending Civilians to Space

Now is the time to protect the health and safety of civilians who will be traveling, living and working in the dangerous environment of space | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Spring Is Starting Earlier--It's Not Your Imagination

Birds are heading north before their insect prey emerge. Bees are missing out on early blossoms. Ticks and other pests have more time to feast and spread disease | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Artificial Intelligence Helped Make the Coolest Song You've Heard This Week

Machine-learning algorithms are getting so good that they can translate Western instruments into Thai ones with ease. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Scientists Just Warned We Need to Cut Emissions by 60 Percent, but the U.S. Is Years Away

The IPCC’s latest climate assessment says the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2035, but the U.S. is already behind on a less ambitious target | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Will Humans Ever Go Extinct?

It’s probably a matter of when and how, not if, we humans will meet our doom | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Fast, Deep Cuts in Emissions Are Needed to Avoid 'Climate Time Bomb'

To keep warming below levels that scientists say will bring extreme climate impacts, nations must act quickly to make deep cuts in carbon emissions, according to the final installment of the IPCC’s latest climate report | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Fixing the Hated Open-Design Office

Open-office designs create productivity and health problems. New insights from Deaf and autistic communities could fix them | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

The Strange Way a 12-Foot-Long Invasive Python Was Caught

In Key Largo, Fla., scientists are looking to protect endangered native rodents and slow the invasion of massive Burmese pythons | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

The Science of Spring's Green Show

Spring’s burst of brightness comes before chloroplasts grow and mature | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

RSV Vaccines Are Nearly Here, After Decades of False Starts

Decades of failed attempts have given way to several successful vaccines and treatments for the respiratory disease RSV | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

The World's Simplest Theorem Shows That 8,000 People Globally Have the Same Number of Hairs on Their Head

Hairiness is the perfect way to demonstrate the math underlying the “pigeonhole principle,” first conceived in 1622 | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

Space Force Humor, Laser Dazzlers, and the Havoc a War in Space Would Actually Wreak

In the inaugural episode of Cosmos, Quickly, we blast off with Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno of Space Force who is charged with protecting our space in space, particularly from Russia and China. | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

How the Psychology of Silicon Valley Contributed to a Bank Collapse

Venture capitalists and start-ups don’t mind losing money, but dealing with a bank run is a whole different story | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago

New Evidence Supports Animal Origin of COVID Virus through Raccoon Dogs

Genetic sequences show evidence of raccoon dogs and other animals at the Wuhan market sites where SARS-CoV-2 was found in early 2020, adding to evidence of a natural spillover event | Continue reading


@scientificamerican.com | 1 year ago