Arts

Medium-sized brown bird with colorful plumage standing on a log in a forest.

ArtsJune 1, 2023

Poem: ‘Lyrebird’

Science in meter and verse

Laura Reece Hogan

Illustration of firefighters putting amid a blaze.

ArtsJune 1, 2023

When a Wildfire Burns a City Built for Extracting Oil

A wildfire rages against the Alberta tar sands, aliens induce existential crises for people (and cats), the hype and potential of MDMA, and more books out now

Amy Brady

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ArtsMay 1, 2023

The Connection between Allergies and Climate Change

Allergies on the rise, the political power of dried plants, your brain on music, and more books out this month

Amy Brady

An aerial view looking straight down at two rivers converging.

ArtsMay 1, 2023

Poem: ‘Confluence’

Science in meter and verse

Marianne Karplus

One woman stands behind another with hands on her shoulders

ArtsApril 21, 2023

How This AI Image Won a Major Photography Competition

Boris Eldagsen submitted an artificial-intelligence-generated image to a photography contest as a “cheeky monkey” and sparked a debate about AI’s place in the art world

Allison Parshall

A red and black illustration of a detective looking through a magnifying glass and smoking a pipe.

OpinionApril 21, 2023

AI Can’t Solve this Famous Murder Mystery Puzzle

The 1934 puzzle book Cain’s Jawbone stumped all but a handful of humans. Then AI took the case

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry

Blue-green bioluminescent threads, identified as glow worms, dangle from the ceiling of an otherwise dark cave.

ArtsApril 1, 2023

A Sightseeing Tour of the Universe, Mutated Underground Creatures, Boy Raised by Forest Androids, Gigantic Fish, Perfume's Vitality

Reviews from the editors of Scientific American

Amy Brady

Illustration of astronaut floating above Earth while holding tools.

ArtsApril 1, 2023

Poem: ‘Extravehicular Activity’

Science in meter and verse

Howard V. Hendrix

ArtsMarch 1, 2023

Readers Respond to the November 2022 Issue

Letters to the editor for the November 2022 issue of Scientific American

Artificial IntelligenceFebruary 3, 2023

Mystery Portrait May Be a Raphael, Artificial Intelligence Suggests

A mysterious portrait of the Virgin Mary and Jesus may have been painted by the master Raphael, facial recognition finds. But many art historians reject the claim

Tom Metcalfe

ArtsFebruary 1, 2023

Death, Sex and Aliens: A Surprising History of Slime

Sublime slime, sprawling light pollution, harnessing the bioelectricity in our body, and more books out this month

Amy Brady

An illustration of director Werner Herzog and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek.

OpinionJanuary 17, 2023

What an Endless Conversation with Werner Herzog Can Teach Us about AI

An AI-generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek is definitely entertaining, but it also illustrates the crisis of misinformation beginning to befall us

Giacomo Miceli

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