Trial participant Emily Wheldon with one of the researchers as she practiced attempting to move the lost fingers from her amputated arm before going into an MRI scanner Tamar Makin/Hunter Schone Our brain may not be as capable of rewiring following an amputation as we thought, which could have serious implications for how we treat…
August 19, 2025 4 min read Contributors to Scientific American’s September 2025 Issue Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories By Jen Schwartz David CheneyBrain Washing David Cheney is no mere artist—he’s a board-certified medical illustrator. In the Johns Hopkins University program where Cheney got his master’s degree, the artists study…
Beekman suggests the complexity of childcare drove language’s spread Shutterstock/Artem Varnitsin The Origin of LanguageMadeleine Beekman (Simon & Schuster) Language is one of the few faculties that still seems to be uniquely human. Other animals, like chimpanzees and songbirds, have developed elaborate communication systems, but none appears to convey such a range and depth of…
In the late 1800s Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli pointed a telescope at Mars and saw something curious: linear features that he called canali, meaning “channels” or “grooves.” A mistranslation of that word helped lead to a widespread belief that the planet closest to Earth hosted a civilization. American astronomer Percival Lowell took Schiaparelli’s observations and…
Sumaid pal Singh Bakshi/Unsplash It is difficult to overstate the medical progress made in recent decades. In high-income nations, survival rates for one type of childhood leukaemia have risen from around 10 per cent to over 90 per cent. The HPV vaccine has slashed cervical cancer rates, and the life expectancies of people with HIV…
Before exploding, a star shed most of its layers, giving a glimpse at a massive star’s deep interior. The event may represent a new kind of supernova.
August 20, 2025 2 min read Second U.S. Malaria Case Not Tied to Travel Raises Fears of Local Transmission One-off cases of malaria in the U.S. may become more common as warming temperatures lead to booming mosquito populations By Stephanie Pappas edited by Lauren J. Young An adult female Anopheles mosquito bites a human body….
Concrete buildings absorb heat in hot weather Panther Media Global/Alamy Cement that can cool itself by reflecting light on the outside and releasing heat from its surface could help buildings stay comfortable without needing air conditioning. Normal cement tends to absorb infrared radiation from the sun and store it as heat, which can increase the…
Even for the world’s largest carnivorous bat, a hug is the best hello. Spectral bats are far more cooperative than researchers long assumed, routinely greeting one another with wing wraps and even handing over captured prey to roostmates, researchers report August 20 in PLOS One. Analysis of over 500 videos challenges the notion that spectral…
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. The natural world is full of sexual diversity—traits that challenge binary definitions of male and female—but traditional biology has often overlooked it. Researchers tend to focus on “typical” specimens while relegating variations to footnotes or dismissing them entirely. This approach has led scientists to miss…
