This year’s Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the team behind NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, a space telescope that launched in 2001 to map the cosmic microwave background—the earliest, oldest light we can detect from the universe’s infancy. The WMAP team will split the $3 million award, with its leaders receiving the largest shares. One of those leaders, WMAP’s chief theorist David Spergel, sat down to speak with Scientific American about WMAP’s science and its legacy.
December 3, 2017 — Lydia Chain, Michael D. Lemonick and Lee Billings
Don’t settle for limp, soggy turkey skin—use science when you roast your bird to get that perfect, crackling bite.
November 22, 2016 — Lydia Chain and Carmen Drahl
An isolated group of orangutans in Sumatra is the first new great ape species described since the 1920s, and could be the most critically endangered.
November 3, 2017 — Lydia Chain
Astrophysicists searching for gravitational waves have finally learned what happens when you crash two neutron stars together--and it's very, very shiny.
October 17, 2017 — Lydia Chain, Lee Billings and Michael D. Lemonick
When an African wild dog is ready to stop lazing about, it votes to go hunting by sneezing.
October 2, 2017 — Lydia Chain
Poison ivy or a new perfume making you break out and itch? Your skin normally works as if in harmony to protect you from infection, but sometimes the tune your killer T cells are playing is bad news for your skin cells.
Produced with support from SC Johnson.
August 28, 2017 — Lydia Chain
This fixed wing drone copies a bird to land on vertical surfaces and lift off again.
August 10, 2017 — Lydia Chain
America is preparing for a sea-to-shining-sea solar eclipse. Here’s how you can watch the spectacular display, and maybe even snap a photo to commemorate the event, without burning your retinas or damaging your camera’s optics.
July 27, 2017 — Lydia Chain, Michael Lemonick and Lee Billings
A tough but flexible bot unfurls like a plant using a pressurized plastic tube to inch through rugged environments.
July 21, 2017 — Lydia Chain
These eight-week-old Mexican gray wolf puppies got a clean bill of health at their first vet checkup this week.
July 19, 2017 — Lydia Chain
New photos were just released from Juno’s most recent flyover of the enormous storm raging on Jupiter.
July 13, 2017 — Lydia Chain
When the Oroville Dam spillway cracked and failed after a wet California winter, a team of scientists created a one fiftieth–scale model of the damaged concrete and eroded hillside to help guide the reconstruction.
June 28, 2017 — Lydia Chain
California grunions know how to make the most of a beach vacation. When the tides are right, these silvery fish flop up onto the sand and go in search of a mate.
June 19, 2017 — Lydia Chain
Do you suffer from allergies? Follow the dendritic cell and the entire Scientific American Allergy Orchestra to discover how allergens from pollen to pet dander can change the body's tune.
June 12, 2017 — Lydia Chain
Ladybird beetle wings fold themselves into a tidy package after flight, and now scientists understand how it works.
May 19, 2017 — Lydia Chain
After learning how the waterway transports a billion tons of sediment into the sea each year, scientists built a tool that may help predict the inundations that impact some 80 million people.
May 15, 2017 — Lydia Chain
See how a giant Larvacean’s intricate mucus house, constructed for filter feeding, contributes to oceanic carbon cycling.
May 3, 2017 — Lydia Chain
Thousands congregated in the nation's capital and other cities in the U.S. and around the world to support scientific research and protest Trump administration–proposed budget cuts. Scientific American spoke with researchers, students and fact-loving activists at the New York City and D.C. marches.
April 24, 2017 — Lydia Chain and Andrew Golden
These plastic objects are designed to shape-shift when they warm up.
April 14, 2017 — Lydia Chain
This badger built itself a “refrigerator” in the desert to stash its food windfall.
April 7, 2017 — Lydia Chain
