Scientific American.com

Costs are skyrocketing to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Instead of turning a blind eye, Congress should demand fiscal oversight and make hard decisions balancing costs with deterrence

Deepfake images, a delayed spaceflight, the troubles with space junk and a blast from our past for your Monday review of science news.

New CDC guidance encourages clinicians to start conversations with patients about dangerous heat

Both climate-driven disasters and the clean energy transition pose risks for the world’s largest financial institutions

Therapy chatbots are increasingly popular and may benefit some people, but it's dangerous to trust AI during a mental health crisis

Experts explain how certain worms can infect the brain and why they are an important global public health problem

A giant sunspot cluster rivaling the one that caused the Carrington Event in 1859 could trigger a cannibal coronal mass ejection. But this is unlikely to cause major problems

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