Astronomy

The sun’s current 11-year activity cycle has already peaked—but extreme outbursts from our star may still be in store

Melatonin supplements have become a ubiquitous sleep aid, but research shows that benefits are modest, and the heart health effects of long-term use are unknown

The lovable Star Wars droid is helping to shed light on why some bird species are better at mimicking sounds than others

As holiday feasts and stress approach, an expert explains how to keep your gut healthy without skipping the stuffing.

Researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed an actively growing supermassive black hole within a galaxy just 570 million years after the Big Bang. Part of a class of small, very distant galaxies that have mystified astronomers, CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 represents a vital piece of this puzzle and challenges existing theories about the formation of galaxies and black holes in the early Universe. The discovery connects early black holes with the luminous quasars we observe today.

Few cosmic vistas can excite the imagination like

What are those colorful rings around the Moon?

To be fair, all scientific models are in some sense wrong

Galaxies grow massive through mergers with other galaxies. Massive galaxies like the Milky Way and Andromeda not only merge with other large galaxies, they also absorb their much smaller satellite dwarf galaxies. But these smaller galaxies can become quenched long before they're absorbed, and new research examines this process at Andromeda (M31).

If you enjoyed Beth Gardiner’s feature about big oil’s bet on plastics, here are more books curated by Scientific American

In recent weeks, dozens of infants in the U.S. have been infected with botulism in an outbreak linked to ByHeart powdered infant formula