Latest Stories

An animation showing star fragments turning into gas for the first time

AstronomyAugust 12, 2026

Stunning new images reveal cosmic cycle of death and rebirth

A new study of the Helix Nebula shows a never-before-seen detail of how dying stars recycle elements. Researchers found it by accident

Mary Randolph

Dice arrayed on a white surface displaying many prime numbers.

MathematicsAugust 12, 2026

No, Anthropic’s AI didn’t just solve math’s hardest problem

There’s a $1-million prize for proving the Riemann hypothesis. Claude couldn’t pull that off, but it made significant progress on a related problem

Joseph Howlett

An artist's rendition of three objects—a sunlike star at the left, a growing black hole at the center, and a "black hole star" at the right.

Black HolesAugust 12, 2026

‘Black hole stars’ from the dawn of the universe are coming into focus

First glimpsed as “little red dots” in deep-space images from the James Webb Space Telescope, these giant, gas-shrouded black holes are full of surprises

Lee Billings

AstronomyAugust 12, 2026

New images reveal the Lion Nebula in all its majestic glory

This dying star appears to have a face of gas and a mane of space dust

Mary Randolph

LanguageAugust 12, 2026

Could humans learn a language made entirely of music?

Linguists explain how a language built from musical notes could convey complex meaning and even support conversation

Rachel Feltman, Allison Parshall, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

A black sky with the sun totally eclipsed by the moon.

AstronomyAugust 12, 2026

Everything you need to know about the 2026 total solar eclipse

Follow all the latest updates about the August 12 eclipse with Scientific American

Claire Cameron, Lee Billings

The JCB Hydromax team and the family of JCB chairman Anthony Bamford celebrate the achievement of the 406.320-mile-per-hour world record for land speed with a hydrogen-powered car.

Renewable EnergyAugust 11, 2026

Land speed record holder shatters hydrogen car record with 406-mph race

Andy Green holds the overall land speed record, having hit 763.035 miles per hour while driving a jet-powered vehicle in 1997

Adam Kovac

A 3D illustration of a person's head made of geometric shapes.

MathAugust 11, 2026

Can AI make mathematics more human?

Mathematician Yang-Hui He explains why artificial intelligence is fundamentally transforming mathematical work—and why that’s a good thing

Manon Bischoff

Climate ChangeAugust 11, 2026

National Academy of Sciences pulls climate chapter from judges’ manual

President Donald Trump and other Republican officials had criticized this chapter as biased against fossil fuel companies

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

A glass positive photograph of the corona of the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse that was taken at Sobral, Brazil, with a telescope with four inches in aperture and 19 feet in focal length.

RelativityAugust 11, 2026

107 years ago, Scientific American covered one of the most ambitious total eclipse experiments ever

The Eddington experiment used a solar eclipse to prove Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity

Adam Kovac

A human body with the vagus nerve running through it.

NeuroscienceAugust 11, 2026

Scientists are closer than ever to understanding the power of the vagus nerve

The vagus nerve is the autonomic nervous system’s highway, connecting every major organ

Mary Randolph

NutritionAugust 11, 2026

Science may finally have made up its mind about coffee’s health benefits

Doctors used to warn coffee drinkers. Now research reassures them

Mary Randolph

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