Scientific American Feature Articles

What Are 'Safe and Just' Limits to Earth's Natural Resources?

Joyeeta Gupta, Angela Morelli and Tom Gabriel Johansen/InfoDesignLab — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Boundaries for preserving fresh water, biodiversity and other planetary resources tighten when they must also protect people

A New Type of Cancer Drug Shrinks Hard-to-Treat Tumors

Jyoti Madhusoodanan — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:00:00 GMT

New drugs called antibody-drug conjugates help patients with cancers that used to be beyond treatment

Scientists Are Putting ChatGPT Brains Inside Robot Bodies. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

David Berreby — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:00:00 GMT

The effort to give robots AI brains is revealing big practical challenges—and bigger ethical concerns

How Sleep Engineering Could Help Heal the Brain

Ingrid Wickelgren — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Stimulating the sleeping brain may ease suffering from memory loss, stroke or mental health problems

3D-Printed Cosmic Clouds Unravel the Mysteries of Star Formation

Nia Imara — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 21:00:00 GMT

Three-dimensional printouts of stellar nurseries are helping to reveal how stars are born

The Eclipse Is Coming, and Solar Science Will Never Be the Same

Rebecca Boyle — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:00:00 GMT

The upcoming total solar eclipse and a pair of new sun probes are revolutionizing scientists’ understanding of our closest star

Tomorrow's Quantum Computers Threaten Today's Secrets. Here's How to Protect Them

Kelsey Houston-Edwards — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Researchers are racing to create codes so complex that even quantum computers can’t break them

Why Aren't We Made of Antimatter?

Luke Caldwell — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 16:00:00 GMT

To understand why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter, physicists are looking for a tiny signal in the electron

Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems--Simple Cells Can Do It

Rowan Jacobsen — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Tiny clumps of cells show basic cognitive abilities, and some animals can remember things after losing their head

Tiny Fossils Reveal Dinosaurs' Lost Worlds

Kristina A. Curry Rogers, Raymond R. Rogers — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 14:30:00 GMT

Special assemblages of minuscule fossils bring dinosaur ecosystems to life

Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand

David A. Taylor — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 14:00:00 GMT

Organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to feed demand worldwide, ruining ecosystems and communities. Can it be stopped?

The New Story of the Milky Way's Surprisingly Turbulent Past

Ann Finkbeiner — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 14:00:00 GMT

The latest star maps are rewriting the story of our Milky Way, revealing a much more tumultuous history than astronomers suspected

Intervention at an Early Age May Hold Off the Onset of Depression

Elizabeth Svoboda — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Preventing initial episodes might stop depression from becoming a disabling chronic condition

Why Are Alaska's Rivers Turning Orange?

Alec Luhn — Sat, 23 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Streams in Alaska are turning orange with iron and sulfuric acid. Scientists are trying to figure out why

Inside Mathematicians' Search for the Mysterious 'Einstein Tile'

Craig S. Kaplan — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT

The quest for the einstein tile—a shape never seen before in mathematics—turned up even more discoveries than mathematicians counted on

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need to Stay Healthy?

Christie Aschwanden — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 13:30:00 GMT

Most people naturally have good vitamin D levels. Overhyped claims that the compound helps to fight diseases from cancer to depression aren’t borne out by recent research

How Two Pharmacists Figured Out That Decongestants Don't Work

Randy Hatton — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 12:30:00 GMT

A loophole in FDA processes means older drugs such as those in oral decongestants weren’t properly tested. Here’s how we learned the most popular one doesn’t work

Asexuality Is Finally Breaking Free from Medical Stigma

Allison Parshall — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 13:30:00 GMT

New research on asexuality shows why it’s so important for doctors and therapists to distinguish between episodes of low libido and a consistent lack of sexual attraction

How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything

Michael D. Lemonick — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:00:00 GMT

Huge empty areas of the universe called voids could help solve the greatest mysteries in the cosmos