Scientific American.com

A stunning photograph collection underlines how climate change is altering the world’s coastal and lakeside environments

Three factors determine whether a society experiences disease outbreaks—and how we can fight them

More huge cities are facing Day Zero—the date water taps go dry—just as Cape Town, South Africa, did

An exploding star is a catastrophe on a cosmic scale, but here on Earth we’re safe from such astral disasters—for now

Milestone observations from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal signs of an atmosphere on the inhospitably hot super-Earth 55 Cancri e

Understanding how avian influenza jumped into cows can help shape the path to stopping the virus’s spread

A mysterious 12-sided object called a dodecahedron discovered in England has archaeologists both excited and baffled

Alien worlds that glow like lightbulbs or harbor molten-rock rain are revealing planets’ profound cosmic diversity—and pointing the way toward finding those that truly resemble our own familiar Earth

The far side of the moon holds the keys to the future of radio astronomy. We must maintain its pristine silence to benefit everyone

A competition to develop carbon-removal technology that is run by XPRIZE and backed by money from Elon Musk has announced 20 finalists. A winner will be announced next year

After the spectacular success of the first-ever “Marscopter,” mission planners have soaring ambitions for follow-up flying machines

Large stores of natural hydrogen have turned up in Albania, France and Mali

A decade after Congress told the FDA to expedite the approval of more effective sunscreens, the federal government still has not approved sunscreen ingredients that are safely being used around the world

Astronomy’s future may be slipping away—one climate disaster at a time

Using forests to prop up carbon markets can lead to “perverse effects” on land management, such as cutting out local communities

Media coverage of university students speaking up against the war in Gaza, just like coverage of other protest movements, has fallen prey to some serious weaknesses

An infinite number of random events can produce just about anything if you have quintillions of years to wait

Every now and then, tiny particles of antimatter strike Earth from cosmic parts unknown. A new balloon-borne experiment launching this spring may at last find their source

WHO now admits the COVID virus and other germs spread “through the air.” This plain language may help improve research and action to fight disease

A study of mice starts to unravel how the brain gets tricked by a particular optical illusion