The equations that govern fluids can be tricky to handle Vladimir Veljanovski / Alamy In 1900, mathematician David Hilbert presented his colleagues with a list of problems he believed both captured the present state of mathematics and the shape of its future. This year, 125 years later, Zaher Hani at the University of Michigan and…
Carly Kay is the Fall 2025 science writing intern at Science News. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
The International Space Station (ISS) is due to close down by 2030, and Russia, one of its main partners, is designing its own replacement orbital laboratory. After a decade of planning to place its future space station into a high-latitude polar orbit for Arctic observation, Russian authorities have changed their minds. Instead the Russians have…
A simple drink of water is actually a complex neurological action Catherine Falls/Getty Images The Neural MindGeorge Lakoff and Srini Narayanan, University of Chicago Press This is a book review in two parts. The first is about the ideas presented in The Neural Mind: How brains think, which are fascinating. The second is about the…
Every baby has around a hundred new genetic mutations moodboard – Mike Watson/Getty Images I hate to break this to you, but every child is a genetic experiment – and nature doesn’t care if things go wrong. Our genomes are awful messes created by conflicting evolutionary forces, and every one of us is a new throw of the…
Cells containing human and plant DNA reveal something fundamental about our genome Es sarawuth/Shutterstock How much of our genome really matters? Some argue that because most of our DNA is active, it must be doing something important. Others say even random DNA would be highly active. This has now been put to the test by…
The biggest science story this year was the political upheaval in the United States. Funding cuts, academic lay-offs and vaccine-sceptic policies have widely been seen as an attack on science, according to critics of President Donald Trump’s administration. The resulting damage to science could last way into the future. But, there were also plenty of…
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The holiday season is often painted as an idyllic vision of rest, conjuring images of warm beverages and bountiful time with loved ones. But many people have trouble unwinding at this time of year. Why do the December…
NASA’s Perseverance rover, the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith NASA/JPL-Caltech On Mars, it’s the little things that hint at past life. In 2025, tiny details in rocks across the Martian surface have revealed some of the most exciting clues yet that there may once have been microbial life there. These…
December 26, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm 12 of the Best Interviews Scientific American Did in 2025—on AI, Headaches, and More From an interview with author Mary Roach to a chat with cardiologist Eric Topol, here are 12 of the most eye-opening conversations we had this year By Brianne Kane edited…
