August 19, 2025
4 min read
Plastics Started as a Sustainability Solution. What Went Wrong?
Synthetic polymers were supposed to free us from the limitations of our natural resources. Instead they led to an environmental crisis
August 19, 2025
4 min read
Plastics Started as a Sustainability Solution. What Went Wrong?
Synthetic polymers were supposed to free us from the limitations of our natural resources. Instead they led to an environmental crisis
August 19, 2025
3 min read
180 Years of Standing Up for Science
Our anniversary celebration begins with an outstanding collection of stories about times that science itself has made a full about-face
Scientific American, September…
It was the telegram exchange that sparked an identity crisis for humankind. In 1960 a young Jane Goodall working in a remote forest in Tanzania observed a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard using blades of grass and twigs to fish nutritious…
August 19, 2025
3 min read
September 2025: Science History from 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago
Huge fish; spiritualist rebuke
1975, Sun Loops: “Loops on the sun are shown in a false-color picture made with the Harvard College Observatory…
• Physics 18, s107
Researchers have expanded the quantum wave function of a levitated nanosphere, a step toward future tests of quantum physics.
The NASA spacecraft tasked with uncovering the secrets of Jupiter, king of the planets, is running out of time. The Juno probe has already survived far longer than anticipated—its path around the solar system’s largest planet has repeatedly…
To astronomers in the 1990s, these three facts were self-evident: The universe is expanding; all the matter in the universe is gravitationally attracting all the other matter in the universe; therefore, the expansion of the universe is slowing.
Two…
Billions of nerve cells send signals coursing through our bodies, serving as conduits through which the brain performs its essential functions. For millennia physicians thought damage to nerves was irreversible. In ancient Greece, founders of…
August 19, 2025
4 min read
Contributors to Scientific American’s September 2025 Issue
Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories
David Cheney
Brain Washing
David Cheney is no mere…