In the face of global warming, some dung beetles may already have a survival strategy. As temperatures rise, temperate rainbow scarabs bury their dung deeper, keeping developing young inside dung cool enough to survive, ecologist Kimberly Sheldon reported January 6 at a meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Portland, Ore. Preliminary…
February 4, 2026 4 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm ‘Baby cluster’ of galaxies may challenge cosmic models Dating to only a billion years after the big bang, JADES-ID1 may be the earliest, most distant galaxy protocluster astronomers have ever seen By Lee Billings edited by Clara Moskowitz A composite infrared and x-ray image…
What has happened in the field of human evolution over the past 25 years can be summed up in one word: “more”. Archaeologists have found many more fossils, species and artefacts, in more places – from diminutive “hobbits” who lived on an Indonesian island to the mysterious Homo naledi known only from a single deep cave in South…
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Watching the Winter Olympics is an adrenaline rush as athletes fly down snow-covered ski slopes, luge tracks and over the ice at breakneck speeds and with grace. When the first Olympic Winter Games were held in Chamonix, France,…
We all keep secrets. Whether you are trying to protect messages to loved ones, company accounts or vital state intelligence, the technology that allows you peace of mind in our increasingly online world is end-to-end encryption (ETEE). ETEE means that whoever provides your internet connection, or runs your messenger or video-conference app, cannot see your…
February 2, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm SpaceX plans to launch one million satellites to power orbital AI data center Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to massively expand its orbital footprint in a bid to power next-generation artificial intelligence By Claire Cameron edited by Jeanna Bryner Elon Musk’s SpaceX has filed…
A SpaceX satellite launch at Kennedy Space Center, Florida Geopix/Alamy We are only a month into 2026, yet it’s already clear what one of the major space stories of the year is going to be: mega-constellations, and the ongoing attempts to launch thousands of satellites into Earth’s orbit. The latest development is that SpaceX has…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has historically been the pinnacle of U.S. public health. The agency has been a leading voice for evidence-backed health guidance and a sentinel for deadly disease outbreaks for decades. But over the past year, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Trump administration…
Ryan Wills for New Scientist; Alamy John Martinis is a hardware guy. He prefers the nitty-gritty of doing physics in the lab over the idealised world of textbooks. But you couldn’t write the quantum computing history books without him: he was central to two of the most pivotal moments in the field. And he is…
February 3, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Spiders taught scientists how to make unsinkable metal Researchers mimicked the air-trapping tricks of diving bell spiders to create aluminum that stays afloat—even when punctured By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Eric Sullivan An “unsinkable” metal tube floats in distilled water in the lab…
