News

Imagine you are shopping online for a new pair of headphones. There is an array of colors, brands and features to look at. You feel that you can pick any model that you like and are in complete control of your decision. When you finally click the “add to shopping cart” button, you believe that […]

On the website Infinite Conversation, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog and the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek are having a public chat about anything and everything. Their discussion is compelling, in part, because these intellectuals have distinctive accents when speaking English, not to mention a tendency toward eccentric word choices. But they have something else in […]

Every once in a while we publish a story that makes the editorial team at Scientific American melt. When we were reviewing illustrations for “The Neurobiology of Love” about pair-bonding in prairie voles, the most common response was, “Aww.” First of all, they’re so stinking cute. Unlike promiscuous species like meadow voles, they pair up […]

It’s been seven years since journalists first revealed Exxon Mobil Corp.’s decadeslong efforts to undermine the scientific certainty around climate change, despite knowing how serious a problem it was. Now, a new analysis demonstrates exactly how much the company knew — and how its public disinformation campaigns sabotaged the warnings of its own scientists. Exxon […]

California is taking a beating from what the National Weather Service has called a “seemingly never ending parade” of strong storm systems, which started late last December and are still coming. Called atmospheric rivers, they are long, narrow currents of exceptionally wet air that shoot across the ocean, capable of dumping massive volumes of rain […]

For the first time, scientists have observed quantum interference—a wavelike interaction between particles related to the weird quantum phenomenon of entanglement—occurring between two different kinds of particles. The discovery could help physicists understand what goes on inside an atomic nucleus. Particles act as both particles and waves. And interference is the ability of one particle’s […]

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions grew by 1.3 percent in 2022, according to a report released Tuesday by the Rhodium Group. The rise was relatively modest compared to the 6.5 percent emissions spike in 2021, but it leaves the U.S. further adrift from its commitments under the Paris climate accord. U.S. emissions are now 15.5 percent […]

Editor’s Note (1/10/23): This story is being republished because the town of Montecito, Calif., was evacuated on Monday following concerns that torrential rains from atmospheric river storms might trigger deadly mudslides in the burn scar of the Thomas Fire like those that happened exactly five years prior. At 3:30 A.M. on January 9, 2018, half […]

Nearly half the world’s mountain glaciers are expected to disappear by the end of this century, even if the world meets its most ambitious climate goals. A new study found that 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming would wipe out around 104,000 glaciers and raise global sea levels by about 3.5 inches in the process. […]

Fossil trackways may show tyrannosaur tykes teaming up Credit: Thomas Fuchs Advertisement Paleontologists know little about what giant, bone-crushing tyrannosaurs were like as babies. Hatchling fossils are rare and provide few hints about these foot-high carnivores’ behavior. But now miniature trackways, found in rock roughly 72 million years old, offer evidence that baby tyrannosaurs traveled […]