For the first time, scientists have directly observed metal pollutants leaching from a piece of orbital junk: a SpaceX rocket as it burned in the atmosphere. Such pollutants can damage the ozone layer, meaning the findings will help monitor potential harms from space debris, researchers report February 19 in Communications Earth and Environment. While humans…
February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm NASA identifies which astronaut triggered the unprecedented medical evacuation of the ISS This disclosure comes about a month after NASA made the decision to evacuate the four members of Crew-11 from the International Space Station By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron Astronaut…
SpaceX wants to launch many more satellites Charles Boyer / Alamy Stock Photo Astronomers are scrambling to work out the environmental impact of a SpaceX application to launch 1 million satellites, as the deadline for its approval fast approaches. On 30 January, SpaceX announced it had applied to send a vast mega-constellation of 1 million…
Climate change may threaten North America’s iconic mass monarch butterfly migration. Every fall, millions of monarchs (Danaus plexippus) travel thousands of kilometers over North America as they leave their breeding grounds in Canada and the United States for wintering grounds in a mountainous part of central Mexico. The butterflies make the trek back north over multiple…
February 25, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Nobel Prize–winning brain scientist steps down over Epstein ties Richard Axel resigned from his post co-leading Columbia University’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute over his long ties to Jeffrey Epstein By Dan Vergano edited by Claire Cameron Richard Axel and his wife,…
Quantum computers can theoretically crack common encryption methods BlackJack3D/Getty Images The amount of quantum computing power needed to crack a common data encryption technique has been reduced tenfold. This makes the encryption method even more vulnerable to quantum computers, which may be able to reach the reduced size within the decade. The RSA algorithm is…
February 25, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm ‘Wellness influencer’ Casey Means heads to confirmation hearing The U.S. Senate is holding a confirmation hearing today for wellness influencer Casey Means, the Trump administration’s pick for surgeon general By Dan Vergano edited by Tanya Lewis Snow falls on the U.S. Capitol on February…
Artificial intelligences opt for nuclear weapons surprisingly often Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises. Kenneth Payne at King’s College London set three leading large language models – GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash – against…
February 24, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Female caribou grow antlers as a built-in postbirthing snack A recent study found an unexpected benefit of female caribou antlers: they can function like a vitamin for deer that have just given birth By Emma Gometz edited by Andrea Thompson A mother caribou stands…
Backing up information on quantum computers is tricky RUSLANAS BARANAUSKAS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy In quantum mechanics, the idea that quantum information can’t be duplicated is ironclad – or at least, it was. A surprising approach to backing up qubits, the basic units of quantum computers, appears to allow a sidestepping of this fundamental law of physics….
