I placed the cold, jade rolling pin under my cheekbone and gently glided it to the edge of my face. To be honest, I felt a bit like a piece of pastry. But my grandma assured me that I was engaging in a serious traditional Chinese practice that would make my skin glow and my…
Ultra-endurance athletes triumph over staggering distances and harsh conditions. But one of their toughest foes may be their own metabolic ceiling. By scrutinizing a group of top-tier long-haul athletes, scientists have now helped clarify the upper limits of human energy expenditure. The results, published October 20 in Current Biology, suggest that though the spirit may…
October 20, 2025 3 min read Cells Have a Crystal Trigger That Makes Them Self-Destruct When Viruses Invade A special class of immune proteins protect us from pathogens but also drive inflammation and cell death By Viviane Callier edited by Tanya Lewis A model showing proteins called death fold domains (green) telling a caspase enzyme…
A model of a Neanderthal woman Joe McNally/Getty Modern humans may indeed have wiped out Neanderthals – but not through war or murder alone. A new study suggests that when the two species interbred, a slow-acting genetic incompatibility increased the risk of pregnancy failure in hybrid mothers. A similar mismatch between mothers and fetuses may…
Access to clean water can be difficult in remote regions kornienko alexandr/Alamy A simple jar with a cranked handle could revolutionise the provision of clean drinking water in disaster zones and remote communities without power. Xu Deng at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu says he and his colleagues were…
mRNA vaccines are increasingly showing their potential to transform medicine JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images The mRNA covid-19 vaccines seem to have an unexpected benefit: extending the lives of people being treated for cancers by boosting the effectiveness of immunotherapy. An analysis of the records of nearly 1000 people being treated for advanced skin and…
This article is part of “Innovations In: Type 1 Diabetes”, an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Vertex. Sterling Glass had many health problems as a child—swollen feet, night sweats, nausea and vomiting, unquenchable thirst, and fatigue that often left him too exhausted to go to school. The problems didn’t…
Humans aren’t very efficient movers—until you put us on a bicycle, when we become some of the most energy-efficient land travelers in the animal kingdom. For Scientific American’s 180th birthday, we’ve updated a classic graphic comparing different forms of animal locomotion, first published in this magazine in 1973. Travel involves two main expenditures of energy:…
This article is part of “Innovations In: Type 1 Diabetes,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Vertex. Type 1 diabetes wears many faces—an elusive autoimmune disease, a metabolic mess, a chronic condition that requires lifelong treatment. That means researchers, clinicians and advocates have to wear many faces as well…
Inflammation has two faces. It can be short-lived like the swelling after a twisted ankle or a two-day fever when you get a mild flu, both part of the healing process. Or it can be a longer-lasting and more damaging affliction—chronic, low-grade inflammation that lingers in the body for years without obvious symptoms, silently harming…
