Stories by Brianne Kane

A physicist explores how poetry, pop culture and imagination help us understand spacetime and our place in the universe

Author Rachel Zoffness breaks down why we have chronic pain and how science shows that it’s all in our head

Alexis Hall reimagines Melville’s classic with space whales, AI intrigue and a bold queer twist that launches Moby-Dick into an entirely new sci‑fi universe

The author of the novel Project Hail Mary breaks down aliens, anxiety and the process of bringing his story to the screen

Project Hail Mary directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord talk about astrobiology, optimistic science fiction, heist films and handsome scientists

How do scientists actually study beavers? How do beavers build dams? And what is “beaver butt juice”?

Ryan Gosling plays a science teacher turned (reluctant) astronaut in the upcoming film adaptation of Project Hail Mary, a science fiction novel by author Andy Weir

Michael Pollan dives into the scientific and philosophical puzzles of consciousness, from brain biology to AI and beyond

Scientific American’s staff recommends eight books that are as full of science as they are of love

From an interview with author Mary Roach to a chat with cardiologist Eric Topol, here are 12 of the most eye-opening conversations we had this year

Journalist Karen Hao unpacks the rise of AI “empires,” their ideological roots, and the hidden environmental and societal costs of OpenAI’s quest for artificial general intelligence.

On our Best Fiction of 2025 list, Emma Pattee imagines Portland’s worst Earthquake in her debut novel Tilt

On our 2025 Best Nonfiction of the Year list, Karen Hao’s investigation of artificial intelligence reveals how the AI future is still in our hands

Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson, is one of Scientific American’s best fiction picks of 2025. In the novel, aliens talk through an AI headset and land in the Cherokee Nation, while the military scrambles to contain and control the unknown

The 10 best fiction books of 2025 explore far-off planets, future climate catastrophes, and more

The 10 best nonfiction books of 2025, from the history of replaceable body parts to our AI future

Here are the 67 books Scientific American staffers couldn’t put down this year, from fantasy epics to gripping nonfiction

Scientific American unveils its first-ever best fiction and nonfiction books of the year, spotlighting stories that blend science, imagination and unforgettable voices.

If you enjoyed Beth Gardiner’s feature about big oil’s bet on plastics, here are more books curated by Scientific American

To celebrate Scientific American’s 180th anniversary, we invited readers to place our magazine covers in the wild. See our staff’s favorite submissions

Annotating the margins of books is an important part of deep reading and has a long legacy of merit in both science and literature

A collection of seven book reviews from our archives, each paired with a recently published book we recommend

Check out this collection of nonfiction and fiction books recommended by Scientific American

Check out Scientific American’s fiction and nonfiction book recommendations for July