Scientific American.com

Gravitational Wave Science Faces Budget Cuts Just Years After Breakthrough Discoveries
Less than a decade since the first detection of gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime itself—proposed budget cuts threaten to silence this groundbreaking science
Polymetallic Nodules, a Source of Rare Metals, May Hold the Secrets of 'Dark Oxygen'
When researchers discovered "dark oxygen" last year, the news spread around the world, but the biggest challenge to the science comes from its funders.
U.S. Ends Support for CMB-S4 Project to Study Cosmic Inflation
Researchers hoped CMB-S4, a $900-million cosmology experiment, would answer one of the greatest questions in physics. Instead it’s become another cautionary tale of pursuing big science amid shrinking budgets
Heat Dome’s Extreme Heat and Humidity Triggers Alerts across Eastern U.S.
High humidity and low overnight temperatures will put tens of millions of people under heat alerts over the course of the coming week
Physicists Blast Gold to Astonishing Temperatures, Overturning 40 Years of Physics
Physicists superheated gold to 14 times its melting point, disproving a long-standing prediction about the temperature limits of solids
Can a Chatbot be Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Interpretability Research on Claude 4
As large language models like Claude 4 express uncertainty about whether they are conscious, researchers race to decode their inner workings, raising profound questions about machine awareness, ethics and the risks of uncontrolled AI evolution
Study Finds COVID Pandemic Accelerated Brain Aging in Everyone
A study of nearly 1,000 people showed that brain aging was not linked to infection status
Trump Administration Changes at NIH, EPA, NASA, NSF Spark Internal Dissent
Hundreds of staffers at the National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Science Foundation have signed public letters to leadership opposing the direction in which the agencies are headed
Nonfiction and Fiction Summer Reading Recommendations from Scientific American
If you’re seeking a summer read, Scientific American has some fantastic fiction and notable nonfiction to recommend.
Ozzy Osbourne, Who Suffered with a Form of Parkinson’s, Dies at 76
Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer of Black Sabbath, has died at age 76. He said he had been previously diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease linked to the gene PRKN
Biggest Trial of Four-Day Workweek Finds Workers Are Happier and Feel Just as Productive
The largest yet study on a four-day workweek included 141 companies, 90 percent of which retained the arrangement at the end of the six-month experiment
Why I’m Suing OpenAI, the Creator of ChatGPT
My lawsuit in Hawaii lays out the safety issues in OpenAI’s products and how they could irreparably harm both Hawaii and the rest of the U.S.
NASA Employees Warn Science and Safety Are at Risk from White House Budget Cuts
A declaration of dissent from past and present NASA employees warns that science and safety are at risk and joins similar documents from staff at other federal science agencies
Male Birth Control Pill YCT-529 Passes Human Safety Test
A hormone-free pill, called YCT-529, that temporarily stops sperm production by blocking a vitamin A metabolite has just concluded its first safety trial in humans, getting a step closer to increasing male contraceptive options
Optimists Are Alike, but Pessimists Are Unique, Brain Scan Study Suggests
Optimists have similar patterns of brain activation when they think about the future—but pessimists are all different from one another, a brain scan study suggests
Try These Logic Puzzles from the International Logic Olympiad
In only its second year, the International Logic Olympiad is already booming as logic becomes more and more crucial in our ever changing world
Humidity from Corn Sweat Intensifies Extreme Heat Wave in U.S. Midwest
Humid heat is blanketing the eastern U.S. this week, exacerbated by “corn sweat” in the Midwest
Could AI Have Prevented SkyWest Airliner’s Near Collision with a B-52 Bomber?
A SkyWest pilot’s last-second decision could have prevented a collision that air-traffic controllers may not have foreseen
How Humility Can Restore Trust in Expertise
Acknowledging the limits of one’s own knowledge could be as important a signal of expertise as credentials and confidence
Landmark Langlands Proof Advances Grand Unified Theory of Math
The Langlands program has inspired and befuddled mathematicians for more than 50 years. A major advance has now opened up new worlds for them to explore