In June, at a conference set in the picturesque Italian town of Campagna, south-east of Naples, two physicists in a seemingly endless argument over a long-sought theory of fundamental reality caught my attention. From the sidelines, an unassuming figure politely interrupted them. “I’ve got a slide that might help. Can I put it up?” asked…
August 19, 2025 3 min read September 2025: Science History from 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago Huge fish; spiritualist rebuke By Mark Fischetti 1975, Sun Loops: “Loops on the sun are shown in a false-color picture made with the Harvard College Observatory ultraviolet spectroheliograph aboard the Skylab crewed orbiting satellite. The loops, which are…
A dramatic reconstruction of early modern Homo sapiens in Africa BBC/BBC Studios HumanBBC iPlayer (UK); PBS, US (17 September) In my experience, science documentaries tend to fall into two camps that are roughly akin to French and Italian cuisine. (Hear me out before you judge my analogy.) The first kind is more elaborate, using sophisticated…
August 19, 2025 3 min read 180 Years of Standing Up for Science Our anniversary celebration begins with an outstanding collection of stories about times that science itself has made a full about-face By David M. Ewalt Scientific American, September 2025 I have been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old. I…
Feedback is New Scientist’s popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com In out in out It’s well-known that the internet is about 60 per cent cats and 35 per cent automated bots, so a cat-themed bot was inevitable….
August 23, 2025 3 min read The Brain’s Map of the Body Is Surprisingly Stable—Even after a Limb Is Lost The brain’s body map doesn’t reorganize itself after limb amputation, a study found, challenging a textbook idea in neuroscience By Katie Kavanagh & Nature magazine The brain’s map of the body in the primary somatosensory…
Rangers setting out to install stoat traps in the Kea Basin, New Zealand Robin Hammond/Panos Pictures Across New Zealand, a vast conservation effort is under way to wipe out invasive species and enable various native and endangered birds to rebound. The ground-dwelling kiwi Robin Hammond/Panos Pictures The country’s Predator Free 2050 project, documented here by…
Nancy Shute is editor in chief of Science News Media Group. Previously, she was an editor at NPR and US News & World Report, and a contributor to National Geographic and Scientific American. She is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers.
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. An estimated one out of every 10 people in the U.S. has some kind of food allergy, which adds up to more than 33 million Americans. Peanut allergies are among the most common and certainly take the lead as the most visible. But peanut allergies…
Noise-cancelling headphones have become a popular way to shut out intrusive sounds PjrTransport/Alamy ClamorChris Berdik (W. W. Norton) Noise is all around us, and it is often imperceptible – until the volume knob is turned way up, or way down. We are used to the thrums, trills and brrs of day-to-day life, with soundscapes becoming as…
