The percentage of U.S. high school students who aren’t getting enough shut-eye is climbing. U.S. medical societies recommend that teens sleep eight to 10 hours each night. But in 2023, 77 percent of high school students reported slumbering fewer hours than that, up from 69 percent of those surveyed in 2007. The overall rise was…
March 2, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm U.S.’s and Israel’s war with Iran leaves uranium stockpiles uncertain The Trump administration’s war with Iran over its nuclear ambitions raises new questions about the country’s uranium stockpile By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron A 2021 overview of the Natanz uranium enrichment site…
DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Last year, cosmologists working on the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) reported hints that the mysterious dark energy thought to be driving the expansion of the universe may be weakening over time. If these startling findings prove correct, then dark energy cannot be a cosmological constant – a fixed term in…
Figuring out which bacteria or other nutrients your gut needs may one day be as simple as running detailed computer simulations. From pills to yogurts to sodas, probiotics are being repackaged and marketed to us more and more, with the promise of boosting our “gut health.” But while commercially available probiotics work for some people,…
March 2, 2026 1 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Massive Saharan dust storm brings risk of ‘blood rain’ and fiery skies to southern Europe Known as “La Calima,” this desert dust plume could hit Spain, Portugal and France, bringing with it grit-laden, rust-colored rainfall By Claire Cameron edited by Andrea Thompson Saharan dust…
Crushed basalt being spread in a field trial of enhanced rock weathering for carbon dioxide removal in Queensland, Australia Paul Nelson Spreading crushed silicate rocks like basalt on fields could remove up to 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually while increasing crop yields, according to an analysis of the method’s global…
Scientists have finally come face-to-face with an ancient human ancestor called Little Foot. A new digital reconstruction reveals the visage of one of our oldest close human relatives, researchers report March 2 in the journal Comptes Rendus Palevol. The reconstruction offers a step toward better understanding human evolution. Little Foot is a member of the…
Last September roboticist Benjie Holson posted the “Humanoid Olympic Games”: a set of increasingly difficult tests for humanoid robots that he demonstrated himself while dressed in a silver bodysuit. The challenges, such as opening a door with a round doorknob, started out easy, at least for a human, and progressed to “gold medal” tasks such…
Electron microscope image showing an ant with dolomite in its exoskeleton Hongjie Li An ant that can turn carbon dioxide in the air into dolomite stone in its exoskeleton may hold clues to how humans can sequester greenhouse gases to avert climate disaster. Fungus-farming ants forage for vegetation to feed cultivated fungi that are grown…
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup. First up, a worrying prediction about women’s heart health. A new analysis by American Heart Association researchers released last Wednesday in its journal Circulation projects that almost 60 percent of women will have…
