An upside-down jellyfish in its natural habit on the seabed Eilat. Gil Koplovitch Jellyfish seem to sleep for about 8 hours a day, take midday naps and snooze more after a bad night’s sleep – just like us. Sleep is thought to have first evolved in marine creatures like these, and having a better understanding…
Senior physics writer Emily Conover has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago. She is a two-time winner of the D.C. Science Writers’ Association Newsbrief award and a winner of the Acoustical Society of America’s Science Communication Award.
January 6, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm This Year’s Flu Season Just Surpassed a Grim New Record Almost one in 10 people who visited a doctor in the U.S. in the week ending on December 27 were there for flulike symptoms, according to new data By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by…
A digital rendering of Vast’s Haven-1 space station Vast The space station industry is starting to take off. For decades, if you wanted to send an astronaut or experiment into orbit, the International Space Station (ISS) was the only option. But now, as NASA and its partners prepare to deorbit the ISS at the end…
The predator was closing in, and the prey had to make a potentially life-altering choice: find food or flee? That prey was ecologist David Bolduc. And he was one of many other researchers in a forest in Canada’s Quebec province just trying to stay alive. “It’s so fun,” he says. Bolduc, of Université Laval in…
Subsidies can encourage the adoption of low-emission technologies like electric vehicles Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in the US will require not only the “carrots” of green subsidies, but also eventually the “sticks” of carbon taxes – which both appear unlikely under President Donald Trump. The…
Google’s Willow quantum computer Google Quantum AI What is it about quantum computers that makes them more powerful than conventional machines? A new experiment shows that the property of “quantum contextuality” may be a key ingredient. Quantum computers are fundamentally different from all other computers because they harness uniquely quantum phenomena absent from conventional electronics….
Megan Eaves-Egenes’s Nightfaring explores our connection with the night sky Shutterstock / danm12 Here in the northern hemisphere, January always feels like the longest, drabbest month of the year, so how lucky we are to have a host of new science books to enliven our days. This month, we can explore everything from what the…
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. Hello and happy new year! I love the first few days of a new year. It evokes a feeling that change is possible. That feeling, in part, leads some of us to set New Year’s resolutions. An estimated 40 percent of…
El Niño events led to crop failures in some parts of Europe and raised grain prices elsewhere Public Domain The El Niño weather phenomenon, which influences the climate and economies in regions bordering the Pacific Ocean today, also caused famines in Europe between 1500 and 1800. During El Niño periods, ocean waters in the central…
