Medicine

Whether space, health, technology or environment, here are the issues in science that the editors of Scientific American are focusing on for 2026

A new study identifies a mechanism for how COVID vaccines may, in infrequent cases, drive heart inflammation, a condition that can be caused by the disease itself

Journalist Marla Broadfoot discusses zuranolone, a drug that may help people whose postpartum depression hasn’t responded to traditional antidepressants.

“It is certainly not standard medical practice to perform screening MRIs of the heart and abdomen,” says one expert

A new paper shows AI emerging as a tool that helps scientists test ideas, navigate literature and refine experiments

The National Institutes of Health has canceled funding for at least 383 clinical trials in the last year, affecting some 74,000 participants

After her shocking lung cancer diagnosis, the late Susan Wojcicki dedicated herself to fighting the disease and looking for answers

Vaccines based on mRNA can be tailored to target a cancer patient’s unique tumor mutations. But crumbling support for cancer and mRNA vaccine research has endangered this promising therapy

Lone star tick bites are the most common cause of alpha-gal syndrome, which causes severe allergic reactions to red meat

After studying mice in the 1910s, Maude Slye concluded that vulnerability to cancer was hereditary. She thought she had a solution to eliminate it, but she made some crucial mistakes

In a reversal, the Food and Drug Administration has removed black box warnings on hormone replacement therapies for menopause

Despite the widespread use of medication during pregnancy, a lack of clinical research leaves patients and doctors navigating treatment with dangerously few data.