Scientific American

Hands holding sunscreen products collage

HealthMay 25, 2026

Experts explain how sunscreen really works—and why better ones may be coming soon

Thick and creamy, gloopy or spray-on, sunscreen can be confounding. This science-backed guide can help you get ready for summer

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

MathematicsMay 25, 2026

How mathematicians use Minecraft to calculate pi

Manon Bischoff

A woman's hand holding a green gas pump filling a red car

PollutionMay 22, 2026

Drivers can fill their tanks with a higher-ethanol fuel this summer. Here’s what that means

Stephanie Pappas

A cylindrical fusion prototype glows white and pink inside a dark test bay, surrounded by cables, hoses and metal supports.

Nuclear energyMay 19, 2026

Helion Energy wants to build fusion power on a start-up timeline

Alex Pasternack

An illustrated robotic hand reaches for a 4x4 kenken grid

GamesMay 25, 2026

Today’s 4x4 KenKen

KenKen Puzzle Co.

SAVE $80 ON AN UNLIMITED SUBSCRIPTION TODAY!

A tiny blue octopus sits on brown sandy surface

AnimalsMay 24, 2026

Tiny alien-like blue octopus discovered lurking off the Galapagos Islands

Jeanna Bryner

This image shows a free-floating orange sea pen against the black background of the deep sea.

OceansMay 24, 2026

Ocean census reveals more than 1,100 new species

K. R. Callaway

An array of repeating multicolored spheres, doughnuts, and saddle shapes arranged on a black background.

UniverseMay 23, 2026

The universe could have 18 possible shapes

Manon Bischoff

SpaceX Starship lifting off

SpacecraftMay 22, 2026

SpaceX launches Starship V3—the world's most powerful and tallest rocket ever

Claire Cameron

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June 2026 Issue

A chandelier-shaped cooling system for the quantum computer IBM Quantum System Two.

Quantum Physics

Quantum computing is reaching its make-or-break moment

Adam Becker

An illustration of green computer chips and purple spheres representing quantum bits seem to fly out from a central point of light.

Quantum Computing

What’s a quantum computer good for, anyway?

Zeeya Merali

A stretch of the Via Appia showing the straight construction and stone paving associated with classic Roman roads

Archaeology

New map reveals lost roads of the Roman Empire

Tom Brughmans

An orange and red cross-hatched gradient forms a four-lobed shape over a vast coordinate plane. Along the “x-axis” at the center is a black blob, shaped like a horizontal tear-drop.

Mathematics

The million-dollar math problem hardly anyone is trying to solve

Joseph Howlett

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket launches on a fiery pillar of exhaust surrounded by billowing clouds, sending the Orion crew capsule of the space agency’s Artemis II lunar mission into orbit.

Space Exploration

NASA’s Artemis II launched on first crewed moon mission of the 21st century

Nadia Drake

A false-color view of the moon's Orientale Basin.

Planetary Science

NASA’s Artemis era may finally solve three major moon mysteries

Robin George Andrews

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Games

A robot hand reaches toward bubbles with letters in them

Spellements

Create as many words as you can!

Illustration of a hand and multiple numbers against a purple background.

Math Puzzles

Stretch your math muscles with these puzzles.

A robot hand unleashes a swirl of puzzle pieces, crosswords, and circles with numbers and letters

All Games

Science inspired games, puzzles and quizzes

Special Edition

A number of suns floating with Red Blood cells

Health

Can sunlight cure disease?

Rowan Jacobsen

Pile of peanuts

Public Health

Can peanut allergies be cured?

Maryn McKenna

Illustration of a Vitamin D pill bottle with yellow balloons flying out of it, then being popped by a pin in a hand.

Public Health

How much vitamin D do you need to stay healthy?

Christie Aschwanden

Illustration of a row of human figures (minimialist in style—just outlines, even stick figures), each in a different rainbow color, with a row of vaccines (eg needle plus vial) above the row of humans.

Medicine

Personalized mRNA vaccines will revolutionize cancer treatment—if funding cuts don’t doom them

Rowan Moore Gerety

Illustration of a face, with an enlarged nasal cavity. Inside the nasal cavity are three health care professionals with nasal spray bottles and colorful patterns

Pharmaceuticals

New nasal vaccines offer better protection from COVID and flu—no needle needed

Stephani Sutherland

Illustration of a doctor in a white lab coat, using a bow and arrow.

Pharmaceuticals

These cancers were beyond treatment—but might not be anymore

Jyoti Madhusoodanan

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Podcasts

Conceptual image of artificial intelligence being used for medical advice

This researcher made up a disease to test AI. It failed miserably

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

An image of the full moon on a starry background

Nuclear energyMay 20, 2026

Putting a nuclear reactor on the moon: big promise, bigger challenges

Rachel Feltman, Robin George Andrews, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Illustration of passengers From hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius arriving at Eindhoven Airport

Public HealthMay 18, 2026

Hantavirus outbreak has new updates, PCOS is now PMOS, fish hides in another animal’s ‘butthole’

Rachel Feltman, Tanya Lewis, Andrea Gawrylewski, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

An illustration of a book cover of a women's silhouette on a dark purple background.

CancerMay 15, 2026

Black women’s ‘womb crisis’ extends far beyond maternal mortality

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

An image of boxes of Barilla Protein Plus pasta displayed on a shelf in a supermarket, highlighting a high protein content

NutritionMay 13, 2026

Why everyone is obsessed with protein—and whether you actually need more

Rachel Feltman, Bethany Brookshire, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Discussions

Do you think the Riemann Hypothesis is true? Will anyone ever prove it?

6View the Discussion

What do you want to know about hantavirus?

3View the Discussion

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Popular Stories

A judge sits at the bench between flags, looking down with one hand to her face and eyeglasses raised in the other.

Artificial IntelligenceMay 22, 2026

AI keeps inventing fake cases. Lawyers keep citing them

The trend of attorneys getting caught citing AI-hallucinated cases points to a broader problem: instead of checking AI’s work, people keep trusting it

Steven Melendez

A starry dark sky dominated by a collision between two spiral galaxies.

The UniverseMay 22, 2026

What happens when galaxies collide?

Our galaxy and its nearest large companion, Andromeda, may be headed for a collision on a cosmic scale. What happens then?

Phil Plait

An orange and red cross-hatched gradient forms a four-lobed shape over a vast coordinate plane. Along the “x-axis” at the center is a black blob, shaped like a horizontal tear-drop.

MathematicsMay 19, 2026

The million-dollar math problem hardly anyone is trying to solve

The intimidating legacy of the scariest problem in mathematics

Joseph Howlett

MathematicsMay 21, 2026

OpenAI announces AI’s biggest math breakthrough yet

A chatbot’s result for the 80-year-old “unit distance” conjecture is the first AI proof that would likely be published in math’s top journal if humans had done it alone

Joseph Howlett

A woman's hand holding a green gas pump filling a red car

PollutionMay 22, 2026

Drivers can fill their tanks with a higher-ethanol fuel this summer. Here’s what that means

In an effort to reduce prices at the pump, an EPA wavier allows the sale of fuel with 15 percent ethanol content

Stephanie Pappas

A painting by artist James Doyle Penrose.

HistoryMay 18, 2026

Hidden copy of the oldest known poem in the English language leaves researchers ‘speechless’

Researchers discovered the copy of the 1,300-year-old poem lurking inside a historical text in an Italian library

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

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