Clear Skies, with a Chance of Black Holes
The Event Horizon Telescope’s historic quest to image the “shadow” of a supermassive black hole is off to an auspicious start
Stories by Seth Fletcher
Astronomers Will Try to Take the First Picture of a Black Hole Next Year
If we survive the election, naturally
A Trippy Cosmic History Lesson: SA Editors Discuss Terrence Malick's "Voyage of Time"
Part science documentary, part meditation on the meaning of life, director Terrence Malik’s (“The Tree of Life,” “The Thin Red Line”) new IMAX movie “Voyage of Time” is hard to categorize.
Spacetime Opera: Janna Levin on LIGO and the Hunt for Gravitational Waves
The astrophysicist and author talks about her new book, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
From AI to Zika: AAAS Conference Highlights
Scientific American editors Mark Fischetti, Dina Maron and Seth Fletcher talk about the info they picked up at the just-concluded annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. Subjects covered include gravitational waves, whether there's really a war on science, the growing concern over Zika virus, sea level rise and advances in artificial intelligence.
Why You Should Be Excited about This Week's Big LIGO Announcement
It could mark the birth of a new kind of astronomy
Stephen Hawking's New Black-Hole Paper, Translated: An Interview with Co-Author Andrew Strominger
The Harvard physicist explains the collaboration's long-awaited research on the black-hole information paradox
Confirmed: Black Holes are Magnetism-Powered Eating Machines
The long list of unanswered questions about black holes contains one particularly surprising item: How do they eat? Unlike many of the riddles that black holes pose, this one seems so simple: What do you mean we don’t know how things fall into a black hole?
Injectable Probes Could Transform Brain Monitoring
Conductive polymer mesh could be a boon to brain research
Why Colliding Galaxies Never Go out of Style
The first theory proposed to explain the universe's strangest galaxies has had impressive staying power
Climate Chatter Dominates Island of Nobels
During a historic European heat wave, 36 Nobel laureates signed a declaration on climate change—and tried to shout down the science-denying claims of one of their own
![How Precision Medicine Will Transform Cancer Treatment [Video]](/blogs/cache/file/C1AAF54F-1B7B-474C-AA0A5BE003A075D6_small.jpg)
How Precision Medicine Will Transform Cancer Treatment [Video]
Nobelist Harold Varmus on the promise of a new generation of cancer treatments—and the big challenges that remain
![Rocket Fuel: Firing the Space Launch System's Engines [Video]](/sciam/cache/file/22FEE721-0847-4097-8BBF048CA4377128_small.png)
Rocket Fuel: Firing the Space Launch System's Engines [Video]
Controversy aside, work on NASA’s next deep-space rocket continues unabated
Finding "Fringes": New Event Horizon Telescope Detections Start Trickling In
The technique that the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) use to observe black holes is called Very Long Baseline Interferometry, or VLBI, but it might as well be called Extremely Delayed Gratification Astronomy: it can take weeks or months after an observing run to find out whether the telescope array actually saw anything.
Computing after Moore's Law
The technologies chip makers hope can keep Moore’s Law alive
Building an Earth-Size Telescope, 1 Station at a Time
Imagine a trio of aerobatic aircraft. Over the years they've gotten very good at their routine. But they want to add another five or six or seven members.
![Computing after Moore’s Law [Slide Show]](/sciam/cache/file/954608F2-2B46-46FB-AF8B9ECF24B11A9F_small.jpg)
Computing after Moore’s Law [Slide Show]
The technologies chip makers hope can keep Moore’s Law alive
The Inner Lives of Robots: An Interview with Filmmaker Alex Garland
The writer–director of Ex Machina talks robot consciousness, mass surveillance and trying to wrap his head around the multiverse
![Immunizing the Internet [Video]](/sciam/cache/file/9569EACC-D21B-4E24-966596F718A51867_small.jpg)
Immunizing the Internet [Video]
Scientific American contributor Keren Elazari argues in a 2014 TED talk that securing cyberspace is impossible without the help of hackers.
![How Transparency Will Change The World [Video]](/sciam/cache/file/D7269BCE-DF1B-4E7D-AF3BBA34F2F18593_small.png)
How Transparency Will Change The World [Video]
Daniel Dennett and Deb Roy explain why digital technology will drive organizations into an evolutionary arms race
