Science

Several challenges around engineering and materials remain. Singapore‘s push to support artificial intelligence (AI)-driven growth is putting fusion power in the spotlight, but experts disagree by decades on when the…

Forget boot prints on the moon or human missions to Mars—the real 21st-century space race is shaping up to be more about who can launch the most rockets and satellites….

We’ve known for a long while that too much sitting isn’t good for you. Numerous studies have shown just how damaging long hours of sedentary behavior can be. But as…

South Korea’s government is sharply expanding its energy technology research and development (R&D) budget for next year to respond to surging power demand driven by the spread of artificial intelligence…

We all know the power of music to make us feel better when stressed. But this relaxing effect goes much deeper than our mood: music changes our brain, reorienting our…

In 2018, Chinese geologists created a methane leak in the South China Sea. They were trying to figure out how much natural gas might exist in marine sediments, so they…

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University have developed an artificial intelligence-based software framework capable of making rapid decisions to control fusion…

Because neither DC Comics nor Marvel are particularly big fans of change when it comes to their bread-and-butter, there are a lot of superhero identities that will probably never change…

More than a century ago, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung made introversion and extraversion central to his theory of psychological types. Today, we tend to use “introvert” and “extrovert” as…

How does one adapt Lovecraftian horror, which, by its very definition, is that of the unknown and indescribable — “unnamable terrors,” colors “outside of any known spectrum” — for the…

It happened so fast. It was 2019, and Megan O’Grady was 32 weeks pregnant with her first child. She took her dogs for a walk, just as she usually did….

Inside some fusion energy systems, particles hotter than the core of the sun can become unruly in a few thousandths of a second, far faster than any human operator can…

Mold isn’t typically something you want growing inside your body. But in the case of Mucor racemosus, there may be compelling reasons to make an exception. That’s because this symbiotic…

Atherosclerosis, the accumulation of fatty plaques in the arteries that causes restricted blood flow, is responsible for most heart attacks and strokes – but it often builds up slowly and…

GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are transformational. From helping people lose weight to controlling their blood sugar to tamping down inflammation and improving heart health, these medications herald a new age of…

Older adults at risk of dementia improved their memory, thinking skills, and overall cognitive performance after taking part in two culturally adapted lifestyle programs across 11 Latin American countries. The…

For the past 50 years, the global race for commercial nuclear fusion has been utterly dominated by the “Tokamak”—a massive, perfectly symmetrical donut-shaped reactor designed to magnetically contain superheated plasma….

Charles Dickens is like William Shakespeare: most of his stories are timeless, and can be transplanted into any setting. Take A Christmas Carol for example: it can be a drama,…

A large study involving more than 270,000 people suggests that one common amino acid may be tied to how long men live. Researchers led by Jie V. Zhao, Yitang Sun,…

Scientists have to follow the data, even if it doesn’t make sense. This is the situation that researchers recently found themselves in when analyzing the flow of rivers in the…

Cells do not have brains. Yet somehow, as an organism grows, cells know where to go and what to be without top-down direction. And acting together, cells are collectively intelligent,…

The sunlight arriving at Earth this moment left the Sun’s visible surface a little over eight minutes ago. The energy carried by it may have begun moving out of the…

On Sept. 6, 1947, a rocket launched from an aircraft carrier for the first time. The V-2 rocket was captured from a German manufacturing site by the Allied forces at…

Why are some societies ruled by autocrats—powerful people who make all the decisions with barely, if any, checks and balances—while in others, the governed actually have a say? If you…

The cultural relevance of Back to the Future is indisputable. Not only did the 1985 classic film utterly change the way we talk about time travel stories, but the film…

In a surprisingly common disorder known as trichotillomania, people compulsively pull out their own hair as a way of self-soothing. But sometimes, this disorder can lead to more serious complications…

Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. I’m just old enough to remember a time when using websites and apps to go on dates was the exception,…

The prospect of fusion power plants is coming closer. But what are the lessons fusion can learn from nuclear fission in areas such as regulation, planning, public approval and finance?…

Identifying distinctive types of conditions like diabetes is helpful in two ways. It means treatments can be personalized more precisely to individuals, and gives researchers a better idea of how…