Scientific American

Electrocardiogram waveform on a dark grid, with sharp peaks tracing the heart’s electrical activity.

Heart diseaseJune 30, 2026

AI found a hidden heart-risk signal in 100-year-old ECG technology

A new model flags people at high risk of sudden cardiac death from a routine ECG—and reveals a warning sign in the heart’s electrical activity

Jacek Krywko

A rule and angle measure next to models of the sun and planets

MathJune 30, 2026

The math behind the universe's symmetry

Manon Bischoff

A field of stars and other objects picked out in gold and purple

AstronomyJune 30, 2026

See the glittering heart of the Milky Way in this stunning new image

Stephanie Pappas

A technician uses specialized high-resolution cameras to digitise specimens at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London.

BiodiversityJune 30, 2026

London botanic gardens digitizes 7 million specimens

Davide Castelvecchi, Nature magazine

A robot hand reaches toward bubbles with letters in them

GamesJuly 1, 2026

Today’s Spellements

Emma R. Hasson

The Young American Scientists Issue—Read Now

Three artist renderings depict commercial lunar landers from Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and Firefly on the Moon. NASA announced June 30 the landers will deliver more NASA science investigations and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface for NASA’s Moon Base Program.

SpacecraftJune 30, 2026

NASA unveils four new robotic missions to help make its ambitious moon base plans happen

Adam Kovac

Sun setting between skyscrapers on 42nd street during Manhattanhenge

WeatherJune 30, 2026

New York City could see its hottest weather in more than a decade

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

The LineShine supercomputer at the National Computing Centre in Shenzhen.

ComputingJune 30, 2026

China’s LineShine supercomputer tops global rankings with almost 2 quadrillion calculations per second

Adam Kovac

A pigeon curves its head to stare into the camera with a bright orange eye.

AnimalsJune 30, 2026

Chaotic pigeons are helping redefine what we know about learning

K. R. Callaway

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July/August 2026 Issue

Conceptual art illustrating the state of American science. A large hand removes bricks from a Jenga-style tower supporting individuals and a microscope.

Social Sciences

U.S. science is in chaos

Adam Rogers

Collage style illustration by Max-o-matic showing different areas of science, government buildings, data samples and maps.

Science Education

On our radar

Megha Satyanarayana

Close-up portrait photograph of J. Craig Venter, image provided by K.C. Alfred/San Diego Union-Tribune/Getty Images.

Biology

Craig Venter

Jeanna Bryner

Collage style illustration by Max-o-matic showing different areas of science.

Space & Physics

My childhood in science

Alan Lightman

Illustration of an individual in a lab coat with a beaker containing a glowing liquid. The individual is ascending a DNA structure staircase. Using the glowing beaker as a guiding light, past newspaper clippings on a wall.

History of Science

When science is under siege, history offers a playbook

Deborah Blum

Portrait photograph of Atul Gawande provided by Priyanka Parashar/Mint/Getty Images.

Public Health

Atul Gawande

Tara Haelle

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The Young American Scientists

Portrait photograph of Adam Bowman, Chee-Huat Linus Eng, Jenny Bergner, Kaiyi Jiang, Christina V. Theodoris, Lvmin Zhang, Steven Chavez and Dmitrii Kochkov.

How we chose the 2026 Young American Scientists

Ari Sen

Stylized illustration by Olga Aleksandrova depicting scientists looks at world maps, photos of cities and stamps. Aiming to underscore the appeal of jobs outside of the United States.

Society & PolicyJune 16, 2026

Dozens of countries are trying to lure U.S. scientists abroad—and it’s working

Sarah Scoles

Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the foreground, against a rose-gold sky.

The SciencesJune 16, 2026

Inside U.S. labs at a moment of fear—and unexpected promise

Rebecca Boyle

Collage style illustration by Max-o-matic showing different areas of science.

CultureJune 16, 2026

What people get wrong about scientists

Dava Sobel

Explore Collection

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

An illustration of a galaxy.

Astronomy

The new story of the Milky Way’s surprisingly turbulent past

Ann Finkbeiner

Doark amorphous shape

Dark Matter

Dark matter might lurk in its own shadow world

Kathryn Zurek

Illustration of a woman at a desk and her dog living in a spacecraft.

Space Exploration

Why we'll never live in space

Sarah Scoles

Illustration of a black hole in a geometric-like universe

Black Holes

The puzzle of the first black holes

Priyamvada Natarajan

Illustration of a dragon-like creature coming to life out of a long roll of paper

Astrophysics

What if we never find dark matter?

Tracy R. Slatyer, Tim M. P. Tait

Conceptual image of the timeline of the cosmos

Cosmology

Astronomers’ epic quest to witness the cosmic dawn

Rebecca Boyle

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Podcasts

Illustration of Brazilian soccer player Bruno Guimaraes pouring water on his head during a 2026 World Cup match

Ebola cases surge, the World Cup heats up, and fatherhood changes the brain

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

An image of a woman sitting down in a lab.

HealthJune 19, 2026

How viruses may reshape the body’s ‘soil’ to promote cancer growth

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Conceptual image of a human brain against a dark background

NeuroscienceJune 17, 2026

Learning from unexpected results: This neuroscientist is redefining how the brain learns

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

Portrait photograph of Erini Lambrides taken by Jeffery DelViscio

AstrophysicsJune 16, 2026

How Erini Lambrides went from seeking theater stardom to studying the stars at NASA

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

The director and cast of the movie Disclosure Day pose in front of a banner with the name of the movie for a promotional event

LanguageJune 12, 2026

Disclosure Day raises a big question: How do you talk to aliens?

Rachel Feltman, Sushmita Pathak, Brianne Kane, Alex Sugiura

Discussions

What role do you think government should play in science?

8View the Discussion

Take me to your reader: Scientific American staff recommend their favorite alien books, but what’s your favorite?

2View the Discussion

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Popular Stories

A piece of new blue paint, a part of President Donald Trump’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, peels off from the bottom of the pool on June 18, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

Materials ScienceJune 22, 2026

Why is the paint peeling off the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? An investigation

Poor preparation and a failure to properly apply the coating may be just a few of the reasons why the Reflecting Pool’s new paint job appears to be peeling off

Adam Kovac

Circles of light on the night sky. A telescope dome atop a mountain is below the center of the circle.

CosmologyJune 25, 2026

Did two physicists just upend decades of cosmology research?

A new study claims that the universe isn’t entirely the same no matter where you look—a radical proposal

Joseph Howlett

Three men contemplate a Go board.

Artificial IntelligenceMarch 13, 2023

AI’s Victories in Go Inspire Better Human Game Playing

Famed AI wins in Go let human players rethink their moves in a whole new way

Emily Willingham

A digital illustration of a face in purple on a black background

Artificial IntelligenceJune 29, 2026

How to spot an AI-generated face, according to science

Training people to pay attention to the right visual cues nearly doubled how accurately they could spot AI-generated faces

Sam Macdonald

A pigeon curves its head to stare into the camera with a bright orange eye.

AnimalsJune 30, 2026

Chaotic pigeons are helping redefine what we know about learning

Pigeons seem to defy a century-old psychology law about how rewards and consequences help us learn

K. R. Callaway

Stylized illustration by Olga Aleksandrova depicting scientists looks at world maps, photos of cities and stamps. Aiming to underscore the appeal of jobs outside of the United States.

Society & PolicyJune 16, 2026

Dozens of countries are trying to lure U.S. scientists abroad—and it’s working

The great American brain drain could define science for a generation

Sarah Scoles

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