February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Baby butterflies keep the beat to fool ants into taking care of them These caterpillars rely on ants to tend them, and they use a surprisingly complex sense of rhythm to make it happen By Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson An ant carrying…
February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Chimpanzee pee reveals how our primate cousins are getting drunk on fermented fruit A urinalysis shows that these apes ingest significant amounts of alcohol, providing new clues to how alcohol influences the animals’ behavior By K. R. Callaway edited by Claire Cameron Chimps are…
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Kendra Pierre-Louis, in for Rachel Feltman. For many of us, our mental picture of romantic love is a couple. After all, a firmly monogamous relationship between two people—ideally married—is often portrayed in popular culture as #goals. And to some degree that is reflected in American attitudes. A…
February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Astronomers spot a young sun blowing bubbles inside the Milky Way A baby sunlike star blowing a bubble of hot gas called an “astrosphere” was captured for the first time by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner X-ray: NASA/CXC/John…
February 25, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Squeak! The surprising new physics of why basketball games are so noisy A new study explains why basketball shoes make a high-pitched squeaking noise when they rub against the hardwood. The ridges on their sole hold the key By Joseph Howlett edited by Lee…
February 26, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Chemistry at the heart of the Milky Way has never looked so gorgeous Astronomers captured this stunning image of the Milky Way’s center, revealing a web of gas, dust and stars in extraordinary detail By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Longmore et…
I still remember the movie night when I first watched Good Will Hunting with my mom. Matt Damon played a janitor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While mopping the hallways, he walked past a blackboard with an advanced math problem written on it. He stopped and started solving the problem. I watched, mesmerized, as…
Alan Cumming, host of the hit U.S. version of the reality competition The Traitors, has a theory about what makes the show so captivating: “We watch people lying, and we know they’re lying,” he said in a recent interview on NBC’s Today. “And also, you watch people dealing with lying not very well and not…
International Women’s Day, held annually on 8 March, is a stalwart of what we might call the “awareness calendar” – the loose collection of days, weeks and months dedicated to informing the public about different issues. It’s unfortunate that some men’s response to IWD is to ask “when is International Men’s Day then?”, especially when…
February 26, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The surprising scientific value of roadkill Scientists have used the tragic reality of roadkill to study the spread of invasive species, track animals’ dining habits and even discover new species By Emma Gometz edited by Andrea Thompson Claudio Beduschi/REDA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images…
