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— Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law

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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: 4 hours 21 min ago

Organ Proteins Reveal How Aging Accelerates at 50 Years Old

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 2:45pm

Aging is a complex process that plays out differently across different organs, according to growing evidence

Categories: Astronomy

Interstellar Meteors Hit Earth All the Time but Still Elude Astronomers

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 2:35pm

Astronomers think small space rocks from beyond our solar system routinely strike Earth—but proving it isn’t easy

Categories: Astronomy

The Surprising Math and Physics behind the 2026 Trionda World Cup Soccer Ball

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 12:00pm

Here’s how the new tetrahedron-based design for the “Trionda” soccer ball may affect next year’s big game

Categories: Astronomy

Heat Dome Temperatures May Break Records in Eastern U.S.

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 11:30am

Tens of millions of people are already under heat alerts, and the worst is yet to come

Categories: Astronomy

What Scientists on Greenland’s Ice Sheet Are Learning about Our Changing Climate

Fri, 07/25/2025 - 6:00am

Think: subzero temperatures, bone-rattling storms and mysteries about the future of our planet under the ice.

Categories: Astronomy

Hulk Hogan’s Biggest Impact May Have Been in Digital Privacy

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 3:45pm

Hulk Hogan, a larger-than-life wrestler known for his showmanship, succumbed to cardiac arrest after a career marked by digital hoaxes and a landmark battle against online exploitation

Categories: Astronomy

‘Arsenic Life’ Microbe Study Retracted after 15 Years of Controversy

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 2:00pm

A controversial arsenic microbe study unveiled 15 years ago has been retracted. The study’s authors are crying foul

Categories: Astronomy

Gravitational Wave Science Faces Budget Cuts Despite A First Decade of Breakthroughs

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 10:00am

Less than a decade since the first detection of gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime itself—proposed budget cuts threaten to silence this groundbreaking science

Categories: Astronomy

Polymetallic Nodules, a Source of Rare Metals, May Hold the Secrets of ‘Dark Oxygen’

Thu, 07/24/2025 - 10:00am

When researchers discovered evidence of “dark oxygen” last year, the news spread around the world, but the biggest challenge to the science comes from its funders

Categories: Astronomy

U.S. Ends Support for CMB-S4 Project to Study Cosmic Inflation

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 1:00pm

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

Categories: Astronomy

Heat Dome’s Extreme Heat and Humidity Triggers Alerts across Eastern U.S.

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 12:45pm

High humidity and low overnight temperatures will put tens of millions of people under heat alerts over the course of the coming week

Categories: Astronomy

Physicists Blast Gold to Astonishing Temperatures, Overturning 40 Years of Physics

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 11:00am

Physicists superheated gold to 14 times its melting point, disproving a long-standing prediction about the temperature limits of solids

Categories: Astronomy

Can a Chatbot be Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Interpretability Research on Claude 4

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 11:00am

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

Categories: Astronomy

Study Finds COVID Pandemic Accelerated Brain Aging in Everyone

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 8:00am

A study of nearly 1,000 people showed that brain aging was not linked to infection status

Categories: Astronomy

Trump Administration Changes at NIH, EPA, NASA, NSF Spark Internal Dissent

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 7:00am

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

Categories: Astronomy

Nonfiction and Fiction Summer Reading Recommendations from Scientific American

Wed, 07/23/2025 - 6:00am

If you’re seeking a summer read, Scientific American has some fantastic fiction and notable nonfiction to recommend.

Categories: Astronomy

Ozzy Osbourne, Who Suffered with a Form of Parkinson’s, Dies at 76

Tue, 07/22/2025 - 5:00pm

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

Categories: Astronomy

Biggest Trial of Four-Day Workweek Finds Workers Are Happier and Feel Just as Productive

Tue, 07/22/2025 - 11:00am

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

Categories: Astronomy

Why I’m Suing OpenAI, the Creator of ChatGPT

Tue, 07/22/2025 - 9:00am

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.

Categories: Astronomy

NASA Employees Warn Science and Safety Are at Risk from White House Budget Cuts

Tue, 07/22/2025 - 8:00am

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

Categories: Astronomy