Scientific American

A close-up of Romanesco Broccoli, which is sometimes called one of nature’s fractals.

MathOctober 6, 2025

Prime Numbers Show Unexpected Patterns of Fractal Chaos

Mathematicians have found a new way to predict how prime numbers behave

Lyndie Chiou

Close up of grey cat cat with deep blue eyes

CatsOctober 6, 2025

See Stunning Feline Photography Revealing the Science of Cats

Liz Tormes, Meghan Bartels

A view of a large white moon with vapor jets emanating from its surface

Space & PhysicsOctober 6, 2025

Enceladus’s Alien Ocean, Ancient Fungi and the Flavor of Influenza

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Jeffery DelViscio, Alex Sugiura

A portrait of former CDC director Susan Monarez

Public HealthOctober 6, 2025

Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Reflects on Firing and Feuds

Max Kozlov, Nature magazine

A woman in a spacesuit and jetpack examines a planet with a word game pattern within it

GamesOctober 6, 2025

Spellements: Monday, October 6, 2025

Emma R. Hasson

Special Offer: $1 for 60 Days

An image of a Nobel prize tinted green with the words, "Physiology or Medicine" atop

MedicineOctober 6, 2025

2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Awarded for Discoveries of How the Body Puts the Brakes on the Immune System

Lauren J. Young

Visualization of a simulated black hole and its accretion disk

CosmologyOctober 4, 2025

Dark Energy Might Be Emerging from the Hearts of Black Holes

Rebecca Boyle

Cropped image of a bar chart shows that Earth currently exceeds several planetary boundaries.

Climate ChangeOctober 3, 2025

Humans Have Crossed 7 of 9 ‘Planetary Boundaries’

Andrea Thompson

A colorful grid of mathematical knot diagrams

TopologyOctober 3, 2025

Math’s Most Tangled Mysteries Start With a String

Emma R. Hasson

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Celebrating 180 Years of Scientific American

Various Covers from Scientific American

Neurotic Cats, One-Eyed Aliens and Hypnosis for Liars Are among the Historical Gems Reported in Scientific American

Mark Fischetti

Covers of three issues of Scientific American

CultureSeptember 22, 2025

Announcing the #SciAmInTheWild Photography Contest Short List

Sunya Bhutta, Isabella Bruni, Brianne Kane

A full-disk image of Neptune, featuring the bluish planet's dark spot and bright cloud bands.

The UniverseAugust 15, 2025

One Year after Scientific American’s First Issue, the Solar System Grew by a Planet

Phil Plait

Drawings of Mars showing its 'canals' and polar ice caps from 1907

HealthAugust 25, 2025

Scientific American Celebrates 180 Years with Stories of Scientific U-turns

Rachel Feltman, Jeffery DelViscio, Alex Sugiura

Group of suited scientists pose indoors; Einstein seated center front with Hans Bethe standing behind him.

OpinionAugust 1, 2025

U.S. Science and Scientific American Have Weathered Attacks Before and Won

Dan Vergano

Explore Collection

October 2025 Issue

Illustration of a starship in outerspace

Space Exploration

How a Billionaire’s Plan to Reach Another Star Fell Apart

Sarah Scoles

Illustration of dirt, rocks and trash under a landslide

Climate Change

The Landslide Lurking in Your Backyard

Jen Schwartz

Illustration of birds and their hatchlings.

Evolution

New Fossils Could Help Solve Long-standing Mystery of Bird Migration

Lauren N. Wilson, Daniel T. Ksepka

landscape of logs in the forest

Ecology

The Secret Lives of Dead Trees

Stephen Ornes

Illustration of a small man looking up at cells

Alzheimer's Disease

New Hope in Alzheimer’s Research: A Special Report

Lauren Gravitz

Illustration of a person pushing on a domino

Health

Can Diet and Exercise Really Prevent Alzheimer’s?

Sara Harrison

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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

Close up illustration of a human eye

Neuroscience

The Brain Science of Elusive ‘Aha! Moments’

John Kounios, Yvette Kounios

Design of a blue tech-like background with a brain in the center.

Artificial Intelligence

Building Intelligent Machines Helps Us Learn How Our Brain Works

George Musser

Illustration of a person on a hospital bed having an out of body experience within a hospital setting

Neuroscience

Lifting the Veil on Near-Death Experiences

Rachel Nuwer

Illustration of a cell, with the Earth at the center of it

Neuroscience

How the Brain ‘Constructs’ the Outside World

György Buzsáki

Human faces lots of eyes colorful waves

Psychiatry

New Treatments Are Rewriting Our Understanding of Schizophrenia

Diana Kwon

Illustration of a head covered in testing equipment, and a smaller figure of a woman reaching up to touch the head.

Sleep

The New Science of Controlling Lucid Dreams

Michelle Carr

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Podcasts

A view of a large white moon with vapor jets emanating from its surface

October 6, 2025

Enceladus’s Alien Ocean, Ancient Fungi and the Flavor of Influenza

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Jeffery DelViscio, Alex Sugiura

A woman stands in the middle of a curious, box of a room that shows walls of wedges in offset patterns of three.

TechnologyOctober 3, 2025

Go Inside a Room That Lets You Hear Your Nervous System

Rachel Feltman, Jeffery DelViscio, Kelso Harper, Fonda Mwangi, Naeem Amarsy

Sign at the entrance of CDC Edward R. Roybal Campus, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Public HealthOctober 1, 2025

Why Top CDC Experts Are Resigning, and What It Means for Public Health

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

A new bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol Acetaminophen Caplets with the Safety Seal over the lid. The bottle contains 100 caplets, 500 mg each. The outside packaging box is in the background.

AutismSeptember 29, 2025

Trump’s Tylenol Claim Sparks FDA Action—But What Does the Research Say?

Rachel Feltman, Allison Parshall, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

A man in a fedora holding a sheet of music looks directly at the viewer and text reading "composing while dead" can be seen at the left

MusicSeptember 26, 2025

A Composer’s ‘Brain’ Makes Music Years after His Death

Allison Parshall, Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Popular Stories

A close-up of Romanesco Broccoli, which is sometimes called one of nature’s fractals.

MathOctober 6, 2025

Prime Numbers Show Unexpected Patterns of Fractal Chaos

Mathematicians have found a new way to predict how prime numbers behave

Lyndie Chiou

Close up of grey cat cat with deep blue eyes

CatsOctober 6, 2025

See Stunning Feline Photography Revealing the Science of Cats

Tim Flach captures his fascination with the science of cats in stunning photographs from his new book Feline

Liz Tormes, Meghan Bartels

Brain inside corona virus illustration.

MedicineMarch 13, 2024

COVID-19 Leaves Its Mark on the Brain. Significant Drops in IQ Scores Are Noted

Research shows that even mild COVID-19 can lead to the equivalent of seven years of brain aging

Ziyad Al-Aly, The Conversation US

An image of a Nobel prize tinted green with the words, "Physiology or Medicine" atop

MedicineOctober 6, 2025

2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Awarded for Discoveries of How the Body Puts the Brakes on the Immune System

Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi shared the Nobel prize for their work on peripheral immune tolerance, a process that is key to organ transplants and treatment of autoimmune diseases

Lauren J. Young

Visualization of a simulated black hole and its accretion disk

CosmologyOctober 4, 2025

Dark Energy Might Be Emerging from the Hearts of Black Holes

A controversial prediction about black holes and the expansion force of the universe could explain a cosmology mystery

Rebecca Boyle

Big crowd of people in a top down view from drone.

MathematicsOctober 2, 2025

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

Is it really possible that half of all people who have ever been age 65 or older are still alive today? We explore the amazing mathematics of demography to find out

Manon Bischoff

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