American dietary guidelines have gotten an overhaul. The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture unveiled a new food pyramid on January 7. The guidelines put meat and full-fat dairy, olive oil and vegetables at the broad top of an inverted triangle. While grains and fruits fell to the bottom. Many…
January 7, 2026 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm NASA Postpones Spacewalk Just Hours Before Astronauts Were to Exit ISS Two NASA astronauts were scheduled to complete a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on January 8, but the agency has postponed it indefinitely By Meghan Bartels edited by Claire Cameron NASA astronaut Mike Fincke poses inside…
The jawbone of an ancient hominin found at Grotte à Hominidés in Morocco Hamza Mehimdate, Programme Préhistoire de Casablanca Fossils nearly three-quarters of a million years old, discovered in North Africa, may belong to a common ancestor of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans that lived shortly before the three hominin lineages split. It is thought…
PHOENIX — Like a motorboat doing doughnuts in a lake, Betelgeuse’s companion star leaves a wake in the giant star’s atmosphere. Signs of the smaller star’s trail around the red supergiant are the best evidence yet that Betelgeuse’s buddy actually exists. “It confirms there really is an object there creating a wake, really, honestly, truly,”…
On Wednesday Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the U.S. Department of Agriculture released new official guidance that effectively overturns the food pyramid. The recommendations encourage Americans to eat “real food” and to consume more saturated-fat-rich foods such as red meat and whole-fat dairy. The dietary guidelines inform U.S. nutrition…
The San people of southern Africa hunt with poison arrows, and this practice may have truly ancient origins imageBROKER.com / Alamy Traces of plant toxins have been found on 60,000-year-old arrow tips in South Africa, showing that ancient hunters made use of poisons much earlier than previously known. Until recently, the evidence for the use…
A new analysis of ancient arrowheads from South Africa pushes back prehistoric humans’ earliest use of poisoned weapons by more than 50,000 years. The five 60,000-year-old quartz arrowheads still have traces of a poison made from a bulbous flowering plant named gifbol (Boophone disticha), also called “poisonous onion,” that was used until recent centuries by…
January 7, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm ‘Microbubbles’ Help Spread Dangerous Microplastics Through Our Water, Study Finds Water plays a crucial role in how tiny pieces of plastic enter our environment—and us By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron A researcher selects microplastics found in sea species at the Hellenic…
Russia shows off its weaponry at a military parade in Moscow Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images In February 2026, for the first time in decades, there will be no active treaty limiting the size of the US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Experts are divided on whether the New START treaty genuinely made the world safer, but there…
PHOENIX —Thousands of newly spotted galaxies are dressed for a Victorian ball: in hoop skirts. The cache of “polar structure galaxies” — with large starry or dusty structures oriented perpendicular to their main body — might help astronomers study how galaxies form and evolve. “[Polar structure galaxies] are relatively rare in the universe,” said astronomer…
