More than 2 billion kilometers farther from the sun than Pluto, a frigid world named Makemake sports the most distant gas ever seen in our solar system, new observations reveal. “By surprise, we found evidence of gas” on Makemake, even though it currently resides 53 times as far from the sun as Earth does, says…
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Humans have been trying to replace ailing parts of our bodies for thousands of years, turning to prosthetic limbs, regrown noses, you name it. But creating something that works as well as our original equipment remains an enormous challenge. Here to walk us through the…
Quantum computers can be made using arrays of atoms Alamy Stock Vector A device with more than 6000 quantum bits, or qubits, has smashed a previously-held record and is the first step towards building the largest quantum computer yet. There is currently no single, consensus design for building a quantum computer, but researchers believe that for…
An intense swarm of earthquakes around Greece’s Santorini Island in January has revealed a fiery underground link between two neighboring and historically explosive volcanoes. Analyses of seismic activity from June 2024 through February 2025, along with changes in the island’s surface elevation, suggest that the same well of magma feeding the Santorini volcano may also…
September 24, 2025 2 min read Most of an Earthquake’s Energy Is Released as Heat, Not Shaking Up to 98 percent of the energy of an earthquake goes into flash heating rocks, not shaking the ground, new research shows. The finding could help yield better earthquake forecasts By Stephanie Pappas edited by Andrea Thompson The…
Some microbes can be quite clingy. Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial species responsible for staph infections, latches onto human skin with one of the strongest biological bonds ever recorded, researchers report in the Sept. 5 Science Advances. This powerful grasp is strengthened by the mineral calcium, preventing bacterial cells from being washed or brushed away from…
This article is part of “Innovations In: RSV,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from MSD, Sanofi and AstraZeneca. While pregnant with her third child last year, Alison Carroll pondered options that hadn’t been available during her first two pregnancies: not one but two ways to help prevent her newborn…
The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider xenotar/Getty Images Hypothetical particles called axions have been sought by physicists for decades, as they are the leading candidate for what makes up dark matter. But we may not need new experiments to find exotic particles similar to axions – evidence of them could be hiding in…
This article is part of “Innovations In: RSV,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from MSD, Sanofi and AstraZeneca. Abigail Echo-Hawk believes in the power of storytelling. An Indigenous public health expert, she creates powerful narratives by merging rigorous research with cultural insight—and uses those stories to inform policy and…
Looking back, the signs were obvious: an extreme need for control, a pathological tendency to exaggerate and an almost comical sense of superiority. My family member claimed to know more than everyone about everything, no matter the topic. He claimed to have the makings of a world-class teacher, doctor, writer or athlete, while also boasting…
