Hundreds of global and regional studies on sea level rise and coastal flooding may have underestimated sea levels by an average of 20 to 30 centimeters. Out of 385 peer-reviewed studies published from 2009 to 2025, around 99 percent incorrectly estimated ocean height, leading to sea level approximations that were off by as much as…
March 4, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Love Island: Rare berry bonanza spurs Kākāpō baby boom A massive bloom of rimu berries fueled a mating surge among the world’s heaviest (and strangest) parrots By Elizabeth Anne Brown edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Kākāpō rely primarily on rimu berries to reproduce—and this…
Anthropic’s Claude chatbot recently had service troubles Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto/Shutterstock This week, AI chatbot Claude went down, leaving users unable to access the service via its maker Anthropic’s website, but barely a week goes by without a similar incident at a technology giant, government website or hospital. What’s causing this apparent uptick in problems? One of…
March 4, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm This may be the oldest ‘butthole’ imprint on Earth Fossils show exceptionally rare evidence of a cloacal vent—the slit that most vertebrates use to excrete, have sex and lay egg—which could shed light on the evolution of the orifice By Taylor Mitchell Brown edited…
The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we dive into fascinating ideas from around the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time here. Modern physics offers a remarkable lens on reality. In just over a century, it has decoded the architecture of atoms, traced the early history of…
When Ukrainian forces retook the site of the Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory in September 2022 after forcing a Russian retreat, they found the facility still stood—but barely. Collapsed roofs, charred walls and emptied shelves all reduced the once-proud observatory to ruin. The scars of occupation were everywhere; Russian troops had converted part of the site’s…
The Shahed 136 drone was invented by Iran and then copied by the US Pictorial Press/Alamy Iran invented the relatively simple Shahed 136 attack drone, but is now fending off US copies launched against it in combat. Why, when the US military has expensive, cutting-edge and hi-tech weapons, is it making flimsy drones powered by…
Software engineering was supposed to be artificial intelligence’s easiest win. Today companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have all released AI products geared specifically to coding. And a survey of nearly 5,000 technology professionals released in a report last year by Google’s DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) team found that 90 percent of…
Peanuts are one of the most common food allergens Radharc Images / Alamy The microbiomes in our gut and mouth may determine whether people with a peanut allergy develop a life-threatening reaction. This could help explain why some people with the allergy experience relatively mild reactions, while others develop severe, or even fatal, symptoms. “There’s…
March 3, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Punch the monkey and his plushie re-create a famous psychological experiment Punch, a monkey that went viral after he was abandoned by his mother in a Japanese zoo, is reminiscent of a foundational attachment theory experiment By Mark Nielsen & The Conversation US A…
