Scientific American.com

Unless you have celiac disease, there are few health benefits to a gluten-free diet

Washing waste from the brain is an essential function of sleep—and it could help ward off dementia

Long dismissed as impossible, nerve regrowth is offering new hope for healing injuries and treating neurodegeneration

The universe has a habit of disproving “unassailable” facts

DNA holds our genetic blueprints, but its cousin, RNA, conducts our daily lives

More and more kids are turning to artificial intelligence chatbots for social interaction. We are scrambling to understand the pros and cons of their use

Bucking national trends in childhood vaccination rates, more teens are getting recommended shots, including for measles and whooping cough

A large language model interviewed me about my life and gave the information to an AI agent built to portray my personality. Could it convince me it was me?

The first detailed observation of the bathroom habits of Streaked Shearwaters at sea leave scientists with a surprising load of questions

From hints of citrus to caramel, premium chocolate’s complex flavors derive from fermenting microbes on cocoa bean farms—and a new study suggests they can be grown on demand in the lab

Beneath the surfaces of distant planets, microbes might subsist on harsh radiation rather than starlight, a new study suggests

China is having a fast-rising chikungunya outbreak in a place that has never had one before.

An ongoing civil war in Sudan has forced millions of people to flee their homes and move to camps, where a lack of water and sanitation infrastructure, along with heavy rains, are fueling a massive cholera outbreak. What role does the environment play in how the outbreak is spreading?

Analyzing embryo movements in uteruslike environments could offer clues to improving the success rate of in vitro fertilization

Colossal Biosciences bold announcements about its project to replicate dire wolf traits have drawn criticism from many scientists, but the billion-dollar firm is not backing down

Algorithmic social media is driving the creation of new slang at a breakneck pace. Linguist Adam Aleksic, also known as the Etymology Nerd, explains how

Neptune’s discovery was a race that ended not long after this magazine came to be

In his new book, Sam Kean reveals how re-creating ancient tools, techniques and traditions can unlock secrets about how our ancestors lived—and what they felt.

Rabbits spotted with hornlike growths on their face in northern Colorado are doing better than they look

The U.S. planetary science community is sounding the alarm about plans to discard a nuclear technology that has powered dozens of NASA missions over the past 50 years