Lillyth Quillan knew almost immediately that something was wrong with her baby. At around eight months old with eight sharp new teeth, he began deliberately biting her breast as she fed him, then looking her in the eyes and laughing. Even though she cried out and pulled him away for significant stretches of time, whenever Continue Reading
Global warming is set to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius soon, meaning the world will most likely fail to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of striving to cap the average temperature increase at 1.5 degrees C. Even if Earth warms more than that, though, this key aim isn’t a lost cause. Scientists say we could Continue Reading
Hotter Nights, Brought on by Climate Change, Pose More Health Threats When nights stay hot, more people die, many from cardiovascular problems. But there are simple methods you can use to stay cooler and healthier By Lydia Denworth edited by Josh Fischman This article was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently Continue Reading
FINDING A TOXIC SOURCE In “Penguin Cartography” [Advances], Gayoung Lee reports on research by marine biologist John Reinfelder and his colleagues about the acblockulation of mercury in penguins. The story highlights gold mining as a source of such mercury. But according to an October 2010 article in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI’s) journal Oceanus, Continue Reading
This story was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. Inside a tent fastened to the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet, the members of the GreenDrill expedition huddled around a drilling rig. The machine whined and shook as it spun. For days the drillers had been inching through ancient, solid ice to reach the Continue Reading
Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www.springernature.com/us). Scientific American maintains a strict policy of editorial independence in reporting developments in science to our readers. © 2025 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, A DIVISION OF SPRINGER NATURE AMERICA, INC.ALL RIGHTS Continue Reading
Seeking Sustainable Fashion and Cracking a Greenland Mystery Inside this double issue of SciAm, you’ll find black holes that burp up their stellar meals, metal detectorists that hit pay dirt, hope for psychopathy, the truth about testosterone and a consumer guide to sustainable clothes shopping By Jeanna Bryner Scientific American, July/August 2025 Sometimes I joke Continue Reading
Rob, 42, is a fitness guy. He loves working out, spends his spare time in the jujitsu gym and eats a high-protein diet heavy on avocado oil. He cares about his health and wants to optimize it, and a lot of the social media influencers he follows are the same. So a few years back, Continue Reading
Why is it so hard to cut through the greenwashing and overstated claims of the sustainable-clothing landscape? To start, the development, production and distribution of most garments are complex endeavors involving a global web of interconnected farmers, factories and traders, all supplying parts and processes to a huge number of brands and customers. Along that Continue Reading
Contributors to Scientific American’s July/August 2025 Issue Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories By Allison Parshall edited by Jen Schwartz Jeffery DelViscioGreenland’s Frozen Secret In the spring of 2024 Jeffery DelViscio (seen freezing above), who is Scientific American’s chief multimedia editor, spent a month on a scientific expedition on the Continue Reading