December 18, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Satellites Used to Have Months to Avoid Collisions—Now They Have Days In the era of mega constellations, spacecraft typically have less than a week to avoid crashes By Jeremy Hsu edited by Clara Moskowitz The space around Earth has become increasingly cluttered with decades…
3rd-century baths and latrine block at Vindolanda, the Roman fort close to Hadrian’s Wall in the UK Vindolanda Trust Despite their reputation for advanced sanitation, ancient Romans at a major fort in northern England were probably suffering from a range of digestive ailments caused by parasites. The fort of Vindolanda, near Hadrian’s Wall and occupied…
Women of reproductive age are more likely than other people to report gut problems like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and can feel dismissed by doctors, as clinicians often put the pain down to diet, stress or hormones. It was never just “in their heads.” A complex interplay between an important hormone, chemical signals, rare populations…
December 18, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Here’s How Much Practice You Need to Become the Best in the World Are you a specialist or a generalist? The answer could reveal something about how well you learn and perfect a skill By Claire Cameron edited by Clara Moskowitz Robert Decelis via…
A composite image of the dust belt around Fomalhaut (obscured in the middle). In the inset, dust cloud cs1, imaged in 2012, is pictured with dust cloud cs2, imaged in 2023 NASA, ESA, Paul Kalas/UC Berkeley Around the nearby star Fomalhaut, asteroids are smashing into each other in a series of cosmic cataclysms, creating huge…
Two asteroid-sized objects orbiting a famous star have collided, Hubble Space Telescope images suggest. The collision provides a rare look at the violent process of planetary construction around a young star — similar to collisions that probably shaped our own solar system, astronomers report December 18 in Science. “It’s the first time we’ve ever seen…
December 18, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Trump Administration Moves to Severely Curtail Access to Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Health officials on Thursday announced a slew of measures that will restrict access to gender-affirming health care for young transgender people in the U.S. By Lauren J. Young & Dan Vergano edited…
Here’s another reason to fight for a window seat: it may help regulate your blood sugar levels Anton Dios/Shutterstock Many of us sit by a window to boost our mood, but exposure to natural light during the day also seems to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes. Our cells and tissues…
December 18, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Two Möbius Strips Combine to Create a Bizarre Object That Only Exists in 4D In geometry, there are surfaces that do without an inside or outside—and some need at least four dimensions to exist By Manon Bischoff edited by Daisy Yuhas LAGUNA DESIGN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images Visually, the “Klein…
Arriving at a 1987 Gamblers Anonymous event in Dallas, Chris Anderson was at a low point. After years of losing money on high-risk stock option trades, his mental health had deteriorated and he had filed for bankruptcy. Fed up with the chaos and dishonesty, his wife had left him. Like many people contending with a…
