Scientific American

Some neuroscientists argue that the roots of experience lie deep inside the brain. If they’re right, the consciousness club will get a lot bigger

These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque

Rabbits spotted with hornlike growths on their face in northern Colorado are doing better than they look

Wemby’s height gives him an advantage in blocking and rebounding, but how does the tallest player in the NBA keep hitting all those threes?

Smart-panel start-up Span wants to turn spare household electricity into AI computing power. How far it can scale and what effect that would have on the residential grid remain unsettled

How animals use Earth’s magnetic field to navigate is one of biology’s biggest unsolved mysteries. This study proposes a totally new source for the sixth sense

Weapons-grade plutonium can fuel nuclear reactors known as mixed oxide reactors, but none of these exist in the U.S.

Flex your math muscles with this weekend’s brain teaser. Play now

A near-miss incident and a deadly chemical accident in a single week have affected thousands and drawn scrutiny to federal rules around risk management at chemical plants

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

A new look at how everything from handwriting to AI quietly reshapes our bodies, habits and sense of connection

A record-setting collection of precisely measured gravitational waves reveals new information about how black holes behave and evolve

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

Biochemist Kamala Baghvat, later known as Kamala Sohonie, forced open the doors of India’s male-only laboratories and used her knowledge to help feed a nation

Debate still swirls around the nature of “little red dots,” black holes glimpsed in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope. A controversial new weigh-in may settle the matter

Generating and confirming the randomness of qubits could lead to breakthroughs in computer data encryption

The discarded fragments of this creature apparently refuse to die, leading researchers to claim immortality

Advances in quantum technology might allow astronomers to circumvent age-old issues that limit the size of optical observatories

A new study could help identify promising treatments to extend the human lifespan, researchers say

At an event at NASA Headquarters, space agency officials unveiled the first rovers and landers headed to the future site of its planned lunar south pole outpost

There Is No Antimemetics Division explores how to survive when memories and meaning are malleable

Author Jeremy Lent argues that human society runs on a flawed, exploitative worldview—and that embracing interconnectedness could enable a more sustainable future

Our universe appears flat—but this observation still leaves plenty of options for its true shape. In fact, our cosmos could resemble a donut

A statement can be true or false. But as Kurt Gödel demonstrated, there will always be mathematical assumptions that can neither be proven nor disproven

This teensy creature was discovered along a deep-sea mountain

Like modern crocodiles, this bizarre ancient reptile was likely a carnivore, but otherwise it bears little resemblance to them

A small, aging fleet repairs the fiber-optic cables that carry data around the globe, and conflict zones can slow that work to a crawl

Anthropic has been consulting theologians and ethicists on Claude’s behavior, raising questions about who gets to shape a chatbot’s values

Scientists are working to solve a mystery of Earth’s molten outer core, which lies more than 2,000 kilometers beneath our feet

A battle between “slimes” and “zoglins” could be the best way to calculate pi—at least for fans of this megahit game

Western Europe is essentially trapped in the weather equivalent of a Dutch oven, a situation that one scientist said has “the fingerprints of climate change all over it”

China’s artificial embryos are part of an experiment to learn more about how human pregnancies could develop under microgravity conditions

One in four abortions in the U.S. rely on telehealth access to mifepristone, but antiabortion activists want to ban it

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

This eerily simple math says our days are numbered—and nobody can agree why it’s wrong