Scientific American

View of crashing waves with rough water on open ocean

WaterAugust 11, 2025

Deep-Sea Desalination Pulls Fresh Water from the Depths

Companies are experimenting with deep-sea tech to produce cheaper fresh water

Vanessa Bates Ramirez

A woman in a spacesuit and jetpack examines a planet with a word game pattern within it

GamesAugust 11, 2025

Spellements: Monday, August 11, 2025

Emma R. Hasson

Beagle in forest

MedicineAugust 11, 2025

Pessimistic Dogs Are Better at Smelling Cancer—And Other Keys to Disease-Sniffing Success

Rohini Subrahmanyam

Perseid Meteor shower photographed from the mountains of California

AstronomyAugust 11, 2025

How to Watch the Year’s Best Meteor Shower, the Perseids

Clara Moskowitz

Historical painting of Napoleon's army in retreat from Russian in winter by Adolf Northen (1828-1876)

MedicineAugust 10, 2025

Did Disease Defeat Napoleon?

Daniel Lingenhöhl

An artist's depiction of a free roaming rogue planet

Space & PhysicsAugust 11, 2025

Rogue Worlds May Not Be So Lonely After All, Europa Clipper Completes Key Test, and RFK, Jr., Pulls $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Funding

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, Jeffery DelViscio

Breakwater in the sea, long exposure

MathematicsAugust 11, 2025

How an Unsolved Math Problem Could Train AI to Predict Crises Years in Advance

Deni Ellis Béchard

An illustrated robot holds out a luminescent orb with a Sudoku number grid inside

GamesAugust 11, 2025

Easy Sudoku: August 11, 2025

Aedes aegypti mosquito on human arm

Public HealthAugust 11, 2025

How the New Chikungunya Virus Outbreak in China Could Reach the U.S.

Josh Fischman

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Celebrating 180 Years of Scientific American

Various Covers from Scientific American

Neurotic Cats, One-Eyed Aliens and Hypnosis for Liars Are among the Historical Gems Reported in Scientific American

Mark Fischetti

Close up of print files with purple ink

PolicySeptember 1, 2020

How an Article about the H-Bomb Landed Scientific American in the Middle of the Red Scare

Alfred W. McCoy

Illustration of a night sky, with multiple faces on moons and two looking through telescopes

PolicySeptember 1, 2020

Reckoning with Our Mistakes

Jen Schwartz, Dan Schlenoff

An illustrated robotic hand gently releases a jigsaw puzzle piece

GamingJuly 30, 2025

Jigsaws: SciAm Cover Art

Sarah Lewin Frasier

A robotic hand holds out an abacus-like word game in this illustration

GamingAugust 11, 2025

Wordology: Terms from the Archive

Sarah Lewin Frasier

Explore Collection

August 2025 Issue

Microscopic view of round viruses with textured surfaces

Bird Flu

Gene-Swaps Could Let Influenza Jump Species

Stephanie Pappas

A Caucasian female farmer in blue coveralls gently pets a cow, channeling care and connection with her livestock on the farm

Bird Flu

What Would It Take for Bird Flu to Spread among Humans?

Stephanie Pappas

Snow Geese flock in flight over field in foggy pink orange sunset light

Bird Flu

The Invisible Toll of Bird Flu on Wildlife

Meghan Bartels

Man in hazmat suit releases duck

Bird Flu

Where Did Bird Flu Go?

Meghan Bartels

A-frame chicken coop containing two red hens, in a lush garden

Bird Flu

How to Protect Pets and Backyard Chickens from Bird Flu

Jude Coleman

Person's hands cracking an egg open with the yellow yolk over a round metal mixing bowl with natural light

Bird Flu

Can You Get Bird Flu from Eggs? Your Egg Safety Questions Answered

Tanya Lewis

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Games

A robot hand reaches toward bubbles with letters in them

Spellements

Create as many words as you can!

Illustration of a hand and multiple numbers against a purple background.

Math Puzzles

Stretch your math muscles with these puzzles.

A robot hand unleashes a swirl of puzzle pieces, crosswords, and circles with numbers and letters

All Games

Science inspired games, puzzles and quizzes

Special Edition

Imagined illustration of atomic nuclei

Particle Physics

The Secret to the Strongest Force in the Universe

Stanley J. Brodsky, Alexandre Deur, Craig D. Roberts

Quantum computer shown against a black backdrop.

Mathematics

Tomorrow’s Quantum Computers Threaten Today’s Secrets. Here’s How to Protect Them

Kelsey Houston-Edwards

Chien-Shiung Wu in laboratory setting working on equipment.

Quantum Physics

The Little-Known Origin Story behind the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics

Michelle Frank

Purple and pink materials being conducted by electricity

Quantum Physics

Quantum Weirdness in New Materials Bends the Rules of Physics

Douglas Natelson

The inside of a hexagon-shaped ultrahigh vacuum chamber.

Particle Physics

Physicists Make Matter out of Light to Find Quantum Singularities

Charles D. Brown II

Illustration of two spheres nearly touching, with a bright yellow light near where they touch.

Particle Physics

Why Aren’t We Made of Antimatter?

Luke Caldwell

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An artist's depiction of a free roaming rogue planet

August 11, 2025

Rogue Worlds May Not Be So Lonely After All, Europa Clipper Completes Key Test, and RFK, Jr., Pulls $500 Million in mRNA Vaccine Funding

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, Jeffery DelViscio

A man in a suit behind a long desk appears to be rising or sitting down while smiling

The EnvironmentAugust 8, 2025

A Meteorologist in Congress Fights for Climate Science

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Jeffery DelViscio, Alex Sugiura

Space ExplorationAugust 6, 2025

NASA Faces Deep Budget Cuts—Every Living Former Science Chief of the Agency Is Sounding the Alarm

Rachel Feltman, Lee Billings, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, Jeffery DelViscio

Children playing with water in the sun and potatoes and tomatoes

The EnvironmentAugust 4, 2025

Russia’s Earthquake, Wonders of Walking and Plant Genetics

Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura, Jeffery DelViscio

An illustration of a human figure with a computer brain with circuitry visible

Artificial IntelligenceAugust 1, 2025

Claude 4 Chatbot Raises Questions about AI Consciousness

Rachel Feltman, Deni Ellis Béchard, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Popular Stories

Conceptual illustration of a person lifting up a wavefunction to reveal a glowing light to a cat. Other people gather round in discussion. There is a glowing blurred sphere above the wavefunction

Quantum PhysicsAugust 8, 2025

Physicists Can’t Agree on What Quantum Mechanics Says about Reality

A survey of more than 1,000 physicists finds deep disagreements in what quantum theories mean in the real world

Elizabeth Gibney, Nature magazine

Human egg and sperm

ReproductionJuly 22, 2025

First Hormone-Free Male Birth Control Pill Shown Safe in Early Human Trial

A hormone-free pill, called YCT-529, that temporarily stops sperm production by blocking a vitamin A metabolite has just concluded its first safety trial in humans, getting a step closer to increasing male contraceptive options

Hannah Seo

Conceptual illustration showing an octopus holding a mirror

ConsciousnessAugust 6, 2025

How to Detect Consciousness in People, Animals and Maybe Even AI

Insights from human brains could inform how scientists search for awareness in all its possible forms

Mariana Lenharo, Nature magazine

Digital generated image of multicolored infinity sign

MathematicsAugust 4, 2025

Some Mathematicians Don’t Believe in Infinity

Can “finitism” possibly describe the real world?

Manon Bischoff

View of crashing waves with rough water on open ocean

WaterAugust 11, 2025

Deep-Sea Desalination Pulls Fresh Water from the Depths

Companies are experimenting with deep-sea tech to produce cheaper fresh water

Vanessa Bates Ramirez

Perseid Meteor shower photographed from the mountains of California

AstronomyAugust 11, 2025

How to Watch the Year’s Best Meteor Shower, the Perseids

The Perseids are the best annual meteor shower, but this year’s show will be dimmed by a bright gibbous moon

Clara Moskowitz

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