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Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.
Updated: 9 hours 59 min ago

Aquanauts experience awe-inspiring ‘underview effect’

Sat, 06/06/2026 - 7:00am

Like astronauts’ “overview effect,” a dramatic feeling of awe takes hold on extended seafloor stays

Categories: Astronomy

Anthropic warns AI may soon begin recursive self-improvement

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 2:00pm

The maker of Claude wants AI labs, including itself, to prepare for a coordinated slowdown if models begin building their own successors

Categories: Astronomy

Astronauts take shelter on the International Space Station because of air leaks

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 11:45am

NASA ordered its astronauts to take refuge inside a docked SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and to prepare for potential evacuation of the International Space Station. But the crew returned to normal operations shortly afterward

Categories: Astronomy

Report: FDA just launched a study on the abortion pill

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 10:50am

The FDA’s ongoing review of mifepristone could skip over established science, health experts warn

Categories: Astronomy

Planets aplenty may lurk around supermassive black holes

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 6:45am

Planets might exist in the least likely place you’d imagine—around the outskirts of supermassive black holes

Categories: Astronomy

How breast cancer screening can predict heart disease risk

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 6:45am

AI analysis of mammograms could provide a “bonus finding” for heart disease

Categories: Astronomy

PCOS is now PMOS: What went behind renaming the common condition

Fri, 06/05/2026 - 6:00am

A physician involved in the long push to change the name PCOS to PMOS takes us behind the scenes of this subtle yet consequential change

Categories: Astronomy

Trump invokes Defense Production Act to keep U.S. coal plants running

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 5:30pm

Coal is the most significant fossil fuel contributor to climate change

Categories: Astronomy

Remote work is making Americans lonelier and sadder, new study suggests

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 2:30pm

Remote and hybrid work can have benefits, but a study involving more than 588,000 people suggest they may take a serious mental toll

Categories: Astronomy

Bumblebees use tools to solve complex problems—despite not being trained to do so

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 2:00pm

Bumblebees appear to be capable of coming up with creative solutions to new problems to get a sugary reward—and their strategies include cheating

Categories: Astronomy

The Laetoli Footprints—the oldest hominin footprints ever found—are at risk of destruction

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 1:45pm

A new investigation alleges that official organizations in Tanzania have imperiled the country's artifacts and remains at four critical human heritage sites they were supposed to protect

Categories: Astronomy

A flesh-eating New World screwworm was just found in a Texas cow—here’s what to know

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 12:45pm

This marks the first case of the New World screwworm in U.S. livestock since the parasite was eliminated in the country in the 1960s

Categories: Astronomy

Astronomers just solved a 50-year-old mystery about the Milky Way’s black hole

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 11:00am

A breeze is emanating from Sagittarius A* at the heart of our galaxy

Categories: Astronomy

Did we just see a primordial black hole at the Milky Way’s edge?

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 10:15am

A blip of light in the outer reaches of the Milky Way might be a bizarre black hole born at the beginning of time itself—and the long-sought solution to the mystery of dark matter. Astronomers are calling it “Phoebe”

Categories: Astronomy

Humans conquered the planet 300 times faster than genetic evolution can explain

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 6:45am

Culture is humanity’s secret for world domination. This calculation shows just how powerful it is

Categories: Astronomy

Search for alien technology on interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS comes up empty

Thu, 06/04/2026 - 6:00am

Even though astronomers didn’t detect alien tech signals from a rare interstellar visitor, the results are worthwhile, they say

Categories: Astronomy

White House reclassifies federal epidemiologists and other scientists from civil servants to ‘at-will’ hires

Wed, 06/03/2026 - 9:00pm

The long-anticipated “Schedule F” order strips job protections meant to safeguard federal employees from political interference

Categories: Astronomy

Scientists just built a powerful AI computer worm that learns as it spreads

Wed, 06/03/2026 - 12:49pm

This prototype could help the world prepare for AI malware threats, according to the researchers who made it

Categories: Astronomy

Landmark pancreatic cancer treatment paves way for targeting other tricky tumors

Wed, 06/03/2026 - 11:10am

Unprecedented results against a stubbornly hard-to-treat cancer are boosting optimism that other challenging tumors will be next

Categories: Astronomy

NASA’s Mars mission MAVEN is lost forever

Wed, 06/03/2026 - 10:02am

MAVEN was the first successful mission designed to study the atmosphere of Mars. It also became a vital node of NASA’s communications network at the Red Planet

Categories: Astronomy