Scientific American

“Everybody’s hair is on fire in the climate or meteorologist community”

The company’s appointed team of experts has verified and released the groundbreaking AI-generated proof, which validates bedrock assumptions of the Standard Model of particle physics

Newton accused Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, another mathematical giant of the time, of stealing the concept of infinitesimals. Here’s the real story

Put your science knowledge to the test with this week’s news quiz. Play now.

One of the strongest El Niños ever recorded is pushing the climate into uncharted territory

Triggering a flow of the brain’s cleaning fluid could lead to better sleep—and may decrease harmful waste particles

Mathematicians will remember 2026 as the year AI changed everything about their field. Scientists may be next in line for disruption

The astonishing strength of this El Niño could mean we surpass an important climate threshold—possibly for good

Foundayo, a daily pill, successfully reduced obstructive sleep apnea, according to clinical trial data

Nvidia’s chips power the AI frontier—thanks, many say, to co-founder and now ex-CEO Jensen Huang

Researchers created a new map of the fruit fly brain. Then the Internet found it

The “Great Unconformity” has puzzled scientists since its discovery in the 1870s

Ryugu might have formed in the very first generation of planetary building blocks

The war in Iran has put 2026 on track for a dip in annual fossil-fuel carbon emissions

Astronomers saw something strange in a distant star system—or rather what’s strange is what they didn’t see. Solving the mystery could reveal new astrophysics

A national system that defines where things are across the country will get a complete overhaul

Despite deer’s essential role in tick reproduction, looking to acorn numbers instead can forecast Lyme disease booms almost two years in advance

Years after being officially eliminated, measles is rampant in the U.S. Could it be back for good?

Nearly 200 countries will participate in this year’s climate talks, held in Antalya, Türkiye

At a press event on Saturday, the agency’s officials stressed that rovers and other infrastructure will be critical to ensuring human survival on the moon

Here’s how the ubiquitous HyperLogLog algorithm works

 One story asks whether cats fart. The others are a lot less funny

Quantum researchers show how materials inevitably absorb light

The less internal noise you have, the more reliably you can tell similar sounds apart

New findings could help explain why cognitive exhaustion feels so crummy

Archived observations appear to show a moving object in the far-distant outer solar system, but its reality is unclear

New toxicology tests of Inca mummies found the kids were given not just cocaine but also alcohol and chemicals found in ayahuasca before the ceremony

Dogs are constantly passing gas. So why don’t cats seem to?

The ocean’s blue and green hues near the infamous zone of debris have gotten brighter over the past 20 years, satellite data show

The unlikely pairing suggests that social relationships between males are more complex than we thought

We asked a statistics expert how difficult it would be to find a needle in a haystack—the answer is: just as hard as you think

New findings from a Siberian tomb offer the earliest direct evidence for human marijuana use

It’s Halloween, and nothing is scarier than our terrifying universe

An AI tool called REA can take apart software that isn’t meant to be opened in printers, smart TVs, cars, and more. Its pseudonymous creator wants everyone to get a peek

The clocks falling back this weekend will give you the opportunity to sleep like a caveman