Science

CLIMATEWIRE | Eight years ago, as the Trump administration was getting ready to take office for the first time, mathematician John Baez was making his own preparations. Together with a small group of friends and colleagues, he was arranging to download large quantities of public climate data from federal websites in order to safely store […]

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House could embolden Republicans who want to weaken or repeal the Affordable Care Act, but implementing such sweeping changes would still require overcoming procedural and political hurdles. Trump, long an ACA opponent, expressed interest during the campaign in retooling the health law. In addition, some high-ranking Republican lawmakers

Mathematicians explore ideas by proposing conjectures and proving them with theorems. For centuries, they built these proofs line by careful line, and most math researchers still work like that today. But artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally change this process. AI assistants nicknamed “co-pilots” are beginning to help mathematicians develop proofs—with a real possibility this

November 22, 2024 3 min read World’s Oldest Alphabet Found on an Ancient Clay Gift Tag A finger-sized clay cylinder from a tomb in northern Syria appears to be the oldest example of writing using an alphabet rather than hieroglyphs or cuneiform By Stephanie Pappas Clay objects discovered during a dig at the ancient city

November 22, 2024 5 min read Here’s Why Abortion Largely Won on Election Day—But Not on the Top of the Ticket Voters supported abortion rights measures while electing antiabortion candidates in the 2024 election. The split reflects a complicated abortion landscape post-Dobbs By Kelly Baden People vote at a polling station at Addison Town Hall

I love it when a seemingly simple question—one so simple that it feels silly to even ask it—leads to profound, even cosmic, insight. For example: Why is the sky dark at night? I can imagine you reading this and thinking, “Seriously? That’s profound?” On supporting science journalism If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our

Rachel Feltman: There’s been a lot of hype around artificial intelligence lately. Some companies want us to believe that machine learning is powerful enough to practically tell the future. But what about using AI to explore the past—and talk to members of long-dead civilizations? For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. My guest today

November 21, 2024 3 min read Chimps Share Knowledge like Humans Do, Spurring Innovation Female chimps who migrate to new social groups bring skills and technology with them, helping to drive development of increasingly complex tool sets By Rachel Nuwer Western chimpazee female “Fana” aged 54 years shows her grandson ‘Flanle’ aged 3 years how

November 21, 2024 5 min read New Bird Flu Cases in Young People Are Raising Concerns about Mutating Virus Canada’s first human case of bird flu has left a teenager in critical condition as human infections continue to emerge in the western U.S. By Lauren J. Young Three influenza A H5N1/bird flu virus particles. Layout

Carolyn Beatrice Parker came from a family of doctors and academics, and she worked during World War II as a physicist on the Dayton Project, a critical part of the Manhattan Project tasked with producing polonium. (Polonium is a radioactive metal that was used in early nuclear weapons.) After the war, she continued her research