Ian Ramjohn remembers the first time he edited Wikipedia. It was 2004, when the site was just three years old, and its information about the government of his home nation of Trinidad and Tobago was a decade out of date. But with little more than his Internet connection, he corrected the page in minutes. “That…
For the past few years, astronomers have grappled with a cosmic enigma first revealed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Practically everywhere JWST looked in the sky’s distant depths, probing a time when our universe was only several hundred million years old, it saw something hard to explain: bright, curiously compact specks that were…
Ievgenii Meyer/Shutterstock It’s January, which means I am slogging through Dry January after the festive overindulgence. This year, however, I am doing so with a book in hand: Charles Knowles’s Why We Drink Too Much, a guide not only to why we drink, but also to what happens in our bodies and brains when we…
January 15, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm The White House Wants an AI Fast Lane The Trump administration’s top science adviser urged the adoption of a single national AI rule book as lawmakers pressed him on who would pay for the build-out By Jenna Ahart edited by Eric Sullivan Michael Kratsios,…
Imagine forming a relationship with a chatbot that suddenly starts suggesting products to you Maria Korneeva/Getty Images Love MachinesJames Muldoon, Faber & Faber Artificial intelligence is now unavoidable – although there are those among us who try. Even if you don’t seek out a chatbot, you will see new icons in your current apps to…
January 15, 2026 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm CDC Will Continue a Controversial Vaccine Study in Africa This clinical trial in Guinea-Bissau would withhold vaccination from some babies, sparking ethical concerns By Dan Vergano edited by Clara Moskowitz The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) global headquarters during a meeting of…
Pilot John Peters (front) and navigator John Nichol became prisoners of war Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy The Uncertainty ToolkitSam Conniff and Katherine Templar-Lewis, Bluebird (UK, now; US, April) Few people have withstood the stress that fighter pilot John Peters faced during the Gulf War. After completing a mission in January 1991, his plane…
You’ve probably seen an artificial intelligence system go off track. You ask for a video of a dog, and as the dog runs behind the love seat, its collar disappears. Then, as the camera pans back, the love seat becomes a sofa. Part of the problem lies in the predictive nature of many AI models….
More than 50 years ago, Jane Goodall stunned the scientific community by reporting that chimpanzees in Tanzania were using tools, inserting twigs into termite mounds to extract the insects. This observation was earth-shattering, as scientists believed tool-making was a uniquely human trait. Louis Leakey, Goodall’s mentor, famously responded: “Now we must redefine ‘tool’, redefine ‘man’,…
January 17, 2026 2 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm NASA’s Artemis II mission to the moon is inching toward launch NASA rolled out the fully stacked Artemis II rocket and Orion capsule on Saturday, embarking on a four-mile journey to the launch pad By Claire Cameron edited by Clara Moskowitz Photo by Jim…
