Scientific American

Some neuroscientists argue that the roots of experience lie deep inside the brain. If they’re right, the consciousness club will get a lot bigger

The discarded fragments of this creature apparently refuse to die, leading researchers to claim immortality

Our galaxy and its nearest large companion, Andromeda, may be headed for a collision on a cosmic scale. What happens then?

Debate still swirls around the nature of “little red dots,” black holes glimpsed in the early universe by the James Webb Space Telescope. A controversial new weigh-in may settle the matter

This teensy creature was discovered along a deep-sea mountain

Advances in quantum technology might allow astronomers to circumvent age-old issues that limit the size of optical observatories

A statement can be true or false. But as Kurt Gödel demonstrated, there will always be mathematical assumptions that can neither be proven nor disproven

Can you crack Killer Sudoku's mathematical twist?

There Is No Antimemetics Division explores how to survive when memories and meaning are malleable

The trend of attorneys getting caught citing AI-hallucinated cases points to a broader problem: instead of checking AI’s work, people keep trusting it

Put your science knowledge to the test with this week’s news quiz. Play now.

At an event at NASA Headquarters, space agency officials unveiled the first rovers and landers headed to the future site of its planned lunar south pole outpost

A battle between “slimes” and “zoglins” could be the best way to calculate pi—at least for fans of this megahit game

A near-miss incident and a deadly chemical accident in a single week have affected thousands and drawn scrutiny to federal rules around risk management at chemical plants

A small, aging fleet repairs the fiber-optic cables that carry data around the globe, and conflict zones can slow that work to a crawl

In an effort to reduce prices at the pump, an EPA wavier allows the sale of fuel with 15 percent ethanol content

Biochemist Kamala Baghvat, later known as Kamala Sohonie, forced open the doors of India’s male-only laboratories and used her knowledge to help feed a nation

A record-setting collection of precisely measured gravitational waves reveals new information about how black holes behave and evolve

A chatbot’s result for the 80-year-old “unit distance” conjecture is the first AI proof that would likely be published in math’s top journal if humans had done it alone

Weapons-grade plutonium can fuel nuclear reactors known as mixed oxide reactors, but none of these exist in the U.S.

Like modern crocodiles, this bizarre ancient reptile was likely a carnivore, but otherwise it bears little resemblance to them

The intimidating legacy of the scariest problem in mathematics

Generating and confirming the randomness of qubits could lead to breakthroughs in computer data encryption

Western Europe is essentially trapped in the weather equivalent of a Dutch oven, a situation that one scientist said has “the fingerprints of climate change all over it”

A hormone-free pill, called YCT-529, that temporarily stops sperm production by blocking a vitamin A metabolite has just concluded its first safety trial in humans, getting a step closer to increasing male contraceptive options

A new study could help identify promising treatments to extend the human lifespan, researchers say

Anthropic has been consulting theologians and ethicists on Claude’s behavior, raising questions about who gets to shape a chatbot’s values

One in four abortions in the U.S. rely on telehealth access to mifepristone, but antiabortion activists want to ban it

Author Jeremy Lent argues that human society runs on a flawed, exploitative worldview—and that embracing interconnectedness could enable a more sustainable future

Our universe appears flat—but this observation still leaves plenty of options for its true shape. In fact, our cosmos could resemble a donut