February 7, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm What watching the Super Bowl does to your health Watching sporting events like the Super Bowl can influence our brains and bodies—and not always in a good way By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron Fans watch the Patriots face off against the…
Bella Hadid smoulders terrifyingly as Ruby in The Beauty Philippe Antonello/FX The BeautyRyan Murphy and Matthew Hodgson, Disney+/FX The intentions and limitations of The Beauty (Disney+/FX), the new series from TV titan Ryan Murphy and collaborator Matthew Hodgson, are on full display in its first scene. Amid the models strutting down a catwalk in Paris,…
Prime numbers are like the atoms of mathematics: they are the indivisible building blocks from which all other numbers are composed. For millennia, these numbers, divisible only by 1 and themselves, have fascinated humankind. They guard many secrets, including how they are distributed on the number line, and efforts to identify more and more primes…
Sebastião Salgado’s photo of the South Sandwich Islands, taken in 2009 Sebastião Salgado Sebastião Salgado became famous for his portraits of humans struggling to survive in an unjust and violent world. He took astonishing photographs of the attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan, covered conflicts in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East, and…
Which animals came first? For more than a century, most evidence suggested that sponges, immobile filter-feeders that lack muscles, neurons and other specialized tissues, were the first animal lineages to emerge. Then, in 2008, a genomic study pointed to a head-scratching rival: dazzling, translucent predators called comb jellies, or ctenophores, with nerves, muscles and other…
Meat and dairy aren’t essential for a child’s development Evgeniia Gordeeva/Getty Images Babies born into vegan or vegetarian families may be slightly underweight in early infancy, but seem to catch up to their omnivore peers by age 2. Official advice generally states that a well-planned vegan diet – rich in vegetables, beans, whole grains and…
February 7, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Lindsey Vonn’s knees reveal the toll of elite skiing—and the body’s resilience The decorated Olympic skier has had numerous injuries and a partial knee replacement but still plans to go for the gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics By Tanya Lewis edited by Andrea…
Kanzi the bonobo at the age of 43 Ape Initiative A bonobo that took part in a pretend tea party like those acted out by young children has shown that our closest primate relatives have the capacity for make believe. Kanzi the bonobo (Pan paniscus) was born in the US in 1980 and died at…
Wildfire prevention has traditionally relied on blunt tools, such as rigid inspection cycles and emergency power shutoffs. Now a new generation of technology start-ups is pitching a more targeted approach: using artificial intelligence to help utility companies decide what to inspect—and where to intervene—before a spark becomes a blaze. The stakes are rising. In 2025…
A volcanic eruption on Io photographed by the Galileo spacecraft NASA/JPL/DLR Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted all at once in a cataclysm of lava. This means that they are probably all connected to the same underground magma network, which will help solve the mystery of Io’s insides. At the end of 2024, researchers…
