Astronomy

The U.S. wants to remain a superpower in space. It can’t without supporting NASA

Science in meter and verse

Decode a confusing clock in this math puzzle

Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories

Letters to the editors for the June 2025 issue of Scientific American

Workouts seem to release body chemicals that improve cancer survival and limit recurrence

Experts say the strongest scientific studies identify three compounds that fight disease and inflammation

This autoimmune disease impacts millions of people worldwide, with some underserved communities bearing the brunt

A famous graphic, now updated, compares locomotion in the animal kingdom

Snake oil, smuggling and a fundamental change in the way we understand life

Babies born too soon seem to have stronger connections in one of the major brain areas that supports language processing if they regularly heard their mother read them a story while in intensive care

Babies born too soon seem to have stronger connections in one of the major brain areas that supports language processing if they regularly heard their mother read them a story while in intensive care

SpaceX closed out a dramatic chapter in the development of its super-heavy-lift Starship launch system with a successful flight test that mostly followed the script for the previous flight test.

With the successful 11th test flight of its Starship megarocket, SpaceX is on the cusp of a new era in spaceflight

Precise measurements of stars’ motions show that a wave is propagating outward from our galaxy’s center — perhaps from a long-ago collision with another galaxy.

The post A “Great Wave” Is Crashing through the Milky Way appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Earth's atmosphere has always been the enemy of ground based astronomy and don’t I know it. What would otherwise be crisp, clean datasets gets turned into blurry smudges. Space telescopes avoid the problem entirely but can only photograph tiny fragments of sky. Now, a team of mathematicians has cracked the code with an elegant algorithm that strips away atmospheric interference in seconds, potentially giving ground based observatories space quality vision whilst keeping their ability to survey great regions of sky.

When I spotted a headline about Earth's ancient oceans and urea, my brain immediately went to the obvious place. Urea, the same compound found in urine. Yes, scientists are telling us that a component of wee played a crucial role in one of the most important events in our planet's history. Sometimes science really does have a sense of humour.

A surge in global temperatures has caused widespread coral reef bleaching and death around the world

Nobel laureate Shimon Sakaguchi reflects on the role of regulatory T cells in peripheral immune tolerance and how the cells could transform treatment for cancer, autoimmune disease and organ transplant rejection