"For the sage, time is only of significance in that within it the steps of becoming can unfold in clearest sequence."

— I Ching

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Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.
Updated: 11 hours 40 min ago

Wiggling Sperm Power a New Male Fertility Test

12 hours 55 min ago

A physics-based sperm-screening technique could offer a more accurate at-home test for people trying to conceive

Categories: Astronomy

West Texas Measles Cases Threaten Elimination Status in the U.S. Here’s Why That Matters

13 hours 40 min ago

High vaccination rates eliminated measles in the U.S. An outbreak that began in West Texas is threatening to overturn that status.

Categories: Astronomy

What Are AI Chatbot Companions Doing to Our Mental Health?

Tue, 05/13/2025 - 12:00pm

AI chatbot companions may not be real, but the feelings users form for them are. Some scientists worry about long-term dependency

Categories: Astronomy

Hurricanes, Wildfires and Other Disasters Displaced a Record 46 Million People Last Year

Tue, 05/13/2025 - 11:30am

In 2024 disasters displaced a record number of people both globally and in the U.S. About 11 million U.S. residents had to relocate to another part of the country because of hurricanes, floods and wildfires

Categories: Astronomy

How to Build a ‘Black Hole Bomb’

Tue, 05/13/2025 - 9:00am

Astronomical amounts of energy could be extracted from black holes—to build a gigantic bomb, for example. Experts have now implemented this principle in the laboratory

Categories: Astronomy

How Trump’s National Weather Service Cuts Could Cost Lives

Tue, 05/13/2025 - 7:00am

Weather experts warn that staff cuts at the National Weather Service that have been made by the Trump administration are a danger to public safety as tornadoes, hurricanes and heat loom this spring and summer

Categories: Astronomy

California Told Companies to Label Toxic Chemicals. Instead They’re Quietly Dropping Them

Tue, 05/13/2025 - 6:45am

Businesses are making moves to avoid consumer warning labels, and the effects reach far beyond California

Categories: Astronomy

Babesiosis, a Tick-Borne Disease That Resembles Malaria, Is on the Rise

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 2:00pm

The tick that causes Lyme disease can also spread babesiosis—and researchers fear doctors in the mid-Atlantic don’t know about it

Categories: Astronomy

Ways To Cope When Your Child Gets A Life-Altering Diagnosis

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 1:00pm

Parents often struggle with the news that their child has a major health issue. Learning how to manage new routines and expectations is key to everyone’s happiness

Categories: Astronomy

U.K. Funds Geoengineering Experiments as Global Controversy Grows

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 11:30am

Critics say U.K. investment in research on climate-cooling interventions, such as refreezing sea ice and brightening clouds, distracts from the need to cut planet-warming emissions

Categories: Astronomy

Breeding for ‘Cuteness’ Is Making Dogs and Cats Look More Alike

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 7:00am

Pugs, Persian cats, and other smushed-face cats and dogs are more similar to one another than they are to the wild animals they evolved from

Categories: Astronomy

Knitting’s Complex Shapes Explained in New Physics Model

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 6:45am

A new mathematical model helps to advance the centuries-old art of knitting

Categories: Astronomy

Kosmos-482 Falls, Cuttlefish Wave, and the Wealthy Warm the Climate

Mon, 05/12/2025 - 6:00am

A spacecraft is set to fall from the skies, 28 U.S. cities slowly sink, and a new study pinpoints how the overindulgence of the wealthy contributes to massive warming. 

Categories: Astronomy

Large Hadron Collider Physicists Turn Lead into Gold—For a Fraction of a Second

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 3:30pm

Scientists at Europe’s famous particle collider briefly created gold ions from lead in a modern twist on the alchemical goal

Categories: Astronomy

Climate Change Will Cause a Lifetime of Extreme Heat for Today’s Children

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 3:15pm

Young people today will be exposed to a number of heat waves that no one would have experienced before the burning of fossil fuels started raising global temperatures

Categories: Astronomy

Stronger Solar Activity Cycles May Be in the Sun’s Forecast

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 3:00pm

The sun has produced stunning auroras on Earth in recent years as solar activity has peaked—but expect more in coming years

Categories: Astronomy

Trump Aims to Cut Hospital Disaster Preparedness Program

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 10:30am

The Hospital Preparedness Program helps hospitals and emergency managers save lives in wildfires, tornadoes, pandemics and other mass-casualty events. The Trump administration has proposed cutting it

Categories: Astronomy

Do We Really Know Less about the Deep Sea Than the Moon or Mars?

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 10:00am

A new review of ocean data suggests that more than 99.999 percent of the global deep seafloor has never been seen by humans. But what does that really mean?

Categories: Astronomy

Linguists Find Proof of Sweeping Language Pattern Once Deemed a ‘Hoax’

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 9:00am

Inuit languages really do have many words for snow, linguists found—and other languages have conceptual specialties, too, potentially revealing what a culture values

Categories: Astronomy

The Strange and Surprising History of the Once-Rejected Zero

Fri, 05/09/2025 - 8:00am

Conceptual problems, ideology clashes and xenophobia prevented the concept of zero from catching on for a long time. Today all mathematics is based on it

Categories: Astronomy