On August 16, 2012, residents of the tiny Dutch village of Huizinge were rattled by an inexplicably large 3.6 magnitude earthquake. Gas extraction in the nearby Groningen gas field, one of the largest onshore gas fields in the world, was the trigger. The area typically does not experience natural earthquakes, and this was the worst…
On Wednesday U.S. senators told President Donald Trump’s pick to lead NASA that the agency must beat China back to the moon. The uncertain future of science at the embattled space agency, meanwhile, took a back seat at the confirmation hearing for Jared Isaacman. NASA is at “an inflection point,” said Senator Ted Cruz of…
A vaccine in development could offer an alternative way to combat severe food allergies Tartezy / Alamy Mice can be protected from the life-threatening allergic reaction anaphylaxis for at least a year using an experimental vaccine. The hope is that it will work in humans too. The threat of anaphylaxis constantly hangs over hundreds of…
The house cat (Felis catus) slunk into China in the eighth century. But long before that, the ancient Chinese were by no means catless. Leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) might have been the first to wander into human settlements for food in China thousands of years ago. They probably hunted rodents eating agricultural grain.Rapeepong Puttakumwong/Getty Images…
December 3, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Satellites Swarming Low-Earth Orbit Threaten Space Telescopes Proliferating satellites are beginning to harm the science work of the beloved Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories By Meghan Bartels edited by Lee Billings A simulated image represents the projected contamination by satellite trails in observations…
Fetch! Dogs may make us happy in more ways than one Monica Click/Shutterstock Dogs may be man’s best friend, but what if they boost our well-being not just by being our furry companions, but by altering our microbiome? A series of experiments in mice suggests that dog owners have a unique makeup of bacterial species…
Important, previously unrecognized genetic changes common to all ancient and modern Homo sapiens spread in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, a new study finds. After that, the same investigation concludes, human evolution experienced a regional twist. Ancient southern Africans evolved an impressive array of genetic tweaks largely independently of humans in other parts of…
December 2, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Trump’s MRI Is Not Standard ‘Preventive’ Care, Say Experts “It is certainly not standard medical practice to perform screening MRIs of the heart and abdomen,” says one expert By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air…
The moon may have had a more complicated birth than we thought NASA/NOAA Multiple impacts on Earth might better explain our moon’s origin than a single giant impact 4.5 billion years ago – and could help solve one of its biggest mysteries. Pinning down the origin of our moon has been hard. The leading idea…
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. One way that we here at Scientific American stay on top of what’s happening in science is not just by examining research papers and studies but also by reading books. For the past two years we’ve shared our staff favorites, but…
