Two male chimpanzees eating the plum-like fruit of the evergreen Parinari excelsa tree at Taï National Park in Ivory Coast Aleksey Maro/UC Berkeley Wild chimpanzees scoffing fermented fruit consume the equivalent of two glasses of wine per day, factoring in their body size compared with us. It has long been known that many primates, including…
Saving reproductive tissue from kids treated for cancer before adolescence could give them a chance at having biological children later in life.
September 17, 2025 3 min read Meet the Oldest Dome-Headed Dinosaur Ever Found A newly discovered dinosaur species has been identified from a fossil unearthed in Mongolia that represents the most complete pachycephalosaur specimen yet found By Jack Tamisiea edited by Andrea Thompson Artist’s reconstruction of the newly discovered pachycephalosaur. Anyone who has ever flipped…
The world is making progress in reducing suicide rates gremlin/Getty Images Suicide rates have significantly decreased worldwide over the past few decades. Yet some countries, including the United States, have rates rising along the opposite trend lines, putting the world behind track on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2030 goal to cut suicides by a…
Amid the petty drama of internet arguments, one never fails to entertain me: Do millennials actually look younger than their age? Sunscreen, vaping, hair parting choices and Botox for people who don’t have wrinkles are used as evidence for and against this generational Dorian Graying. I can’t and won’t adjudicate this debate. But I can shift the…
This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American’s board of editors. Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. People often talk about having “gut feelings,” but new research suggests there may be more to the idiom than we thought. Scientists are finding that specialized…
An asteroid has fragmented in an unexpected way Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA-4.0 An asteroid exploded over France two years ago in a rare single explosive event, raising concerns about future planetary defence from certain types of these rocky bodies. On 13 February 2023, a small asteroid called 2023 CX1 entered Earth’s atmosphere and streaked across the skies of…
In 2016 billionaire Yuri Milner hosted a press conference at One World Observatory, the atrium topping the slick skyscraper at the center of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex. Milner had grown rich investing in tech start-ups, and now he wanted to spend some of that money on sending a spaceship to the stars. He…
My parents are both in their 80s and are fit and well for people of their age. I would like them to be around for many years longer. So, what is the secret to getting from your 80s to 100 and beyond? Good fortune plays a big part: avoiding fatal accidents or deadly infectious diseases…
September 16, 2025 3 min read The Ozone Hole Is Steadily Shrinking because of Global Efforts After nearly 40 years of global efforts, the ozone hole over Antarctica is continuing to heal By Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson A 3D rendering of the ozone hole evolution in 2025. Forty years after global policymakers began…
