Scientific American has been reading, reviewing and recommending books for more than 100 years. These days Brianne Kane, our resident reader, is in charge of organizing our book recommendation lists to help science-minded people find the perfect read, including novels. She joins fellow book nerd Rachel Feltman to talk about the nonfiction and fiction books she’s recommending this summer—and gives a preview of our end-of-year lists. Recommended reading: See The 4 Books Scientific American Loved R...
Jul 23, 2025•11 min
Time travel to an introduction to tide pools, the start of commercial air travel and an intercontinental aviation museum dispute. Host Rachel Feltman is taking a look at a 1925 issue of Scientific American for this archival episode. If you don’t find the past to be a blast, don’t worry! We’ll be back to our regular schedule of science news, deep dives and editor picks next week. In the meantime, read some recent coverage of marine marvels and flight! Recommended reading: Yes, Airline Flights Are...
Jul 21, 2025•9 min
Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional dungeon master, playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a popular tabletop role-playing game, for audiences online and in person. In January his D&D show on Dropout.tv , Dimension 20, played a live game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The show—and the game—experienced a resurgence during the COVID pandemic. Now researchers are diving into D&D science, showing how the game and the togetherness it creates can benefit mental health. Rachel F...
Jul 18, 2025•22 min
Come with Science Quickly on a field trip to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Host Rachel Feltman is joined by Matthew Evans, MIT’s MathWorks professor of physics, to talk about the last 10 years of gravitational-wave research. Gravitational waves were discovered in 2015 by the LIGO team. Since then, innovations from the LIGO Lab have changed our understanding of the universe and made major shifts across physics. Now...
Jul 16, 2025•18 min
Each year more than half a million people undergo bariatric surgery, a procedure geared toward weight loss. But research shows that stigma around weight can continue to affect people’s lives even during recovery from the procedure. Larissa McGarrity is a clinical associate professor at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah and lead psychologist at the school’s comprehensive Weight Management Program. She and her colleagues assessed 148 people who received bariatric ...
Jul 14, 2025•16 min
Last year Science Quickly looked across disciplines to piece apart the science of singing. To understand why humans sing, musicologists collaborated on an international study of folk music. To understand how we sing, neuroscientists differentiated how our brain processes speech and singing. Music enthusiast and associate mind and brain editor Allison Parshall takes us through some hallmark 2024 studies that, taken together, piece together the evolutionary origins of singing. Recommended reading:...
Jul 11, 2025•25 min
Sick coral reefs are visually striking—bleached and lifeless, far from the vibrancy we’ve come to expect. But what does an unhealthy coral system sound like? In this rerun, conservation bioacoustics researcher Isla Keesje Davidson tells Science Quickly all about the changing soundscape of the seas. Recommended reading: 84 Percent of Corals Impacted in Mass Bleaching Event https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worst-coral-mass-bleaching-on-record-caused-by-warming-oceans/ How Corals Fight Ba...
Jul 09, 2025•17 min
Ten months ago Science Quickly made space history by conducting the first-ever live interview from the cupola of the International Space Station (ISS). Astronaut Matthew Dominick spoke with Rachel Feltman about his work on the ISS and the stunning space photography that first caught our attention. Watch a video of the interview See more stunning space photographs from Matthew Dominick E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! ...
Jul 07, 2025•18 min
Drone shows are replacing fireworks for summer celebrations. They’re safer and more environmentally friendly but complicated to program and run. A recent preprint paper proposes an algorithmic solution that can take some technical challenges out of drone operators’ hands and give engineers more creative control. Host Rachel Feltman speaks with researchers Mac Schwager, an associate professor at the aeronautics and astronautics department at Stanford University, and Eduardo Montijano, an associat...
Jul 02, 2025•16 min
Protests around the construction of the now complete Dakota Access Pipeline brought national attention to Energy Transfer, the company that built and owns the pipeline and funded private security against the protestors. Energy Transfer sued the nonprofit Greenpeace for hundreds of millions of dollars. The company claimed that the Standing Rock movement was not Indigenous-led environmental activism but a conspiratorial effort by Greenpeace. Reporter Alleen Brown is spending this season of her pod...
Jun 30, 2025•13 min
Creating a bird flu vaccine requires several layers of bioprotective clothing and typically a whole lot of eggs. H5N1 avian influenza infections have gone from flocks of chickens to herds of cattle and humans. Scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute are taking their best guess at the strains of the virus that could spread and are creating critical vaccine candidates. Multimedia journalist and Scientific American multimedia intern Naeem Amarsy suited up and went to San Antonio, Tex....
Jun 27, 2025•33 min
Dairy cattle have become an intermediary between avian influenza found in wild birds and the handful of recorded H5N1 bird flu cases in humans. Senior news reporter Meghan Bartels took a trip upstate to Cornell University’s Teaching Dairy Barn. Early last year Texas dairy farmers noticed lethargic cows producing off-color milk. One of them sent Cornell researchers a sample, which genetic sequencing determined to contain a strain of H5N1. That strain traces its roots to the H5N1 virus that emerge...
Jun 25, 2025•23 min
Bird flu outbreaks in poultry and cattle have caused concern for public health officials. There have been few reported cases of human transmission, but the growing risks of H5N1 avian influenza have virologists on alert. Researchers at the St. Jude Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response take an annual visit to Delaware Bay to collect samples of bird poop for analysis. These samples give the researchers a look at emerging avian illnesses. While spillover of H5N1 into domestic bi...
Jun 23, 2025•31 min
Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is exploding in popularity among men. TRT has been touted online as a cure-all for everything from low energy to poor mood and even as a way to increase masculinity itself. But how much of the buzz is backed by science? Host Rachel Feltman talks with journalist Stephanie Pappas about the realities behind the trend. They explore who truly benefits from TRT, the overlooked risks—including fertility loss—and the rise of private clinics offering testosterone. T...
Jun 20, 2025•12 min
Host Rachel Feltman explores the surprising connection between exercise and the gut microbiome with Scientific American contributing editor Lydia Denworth . Drawing from her latest reporting, Denworth explains how aerobic activity can influence the microbial ecosystems in our digestive tract—boosting diversity, reducing inflammation, and even supporting muscle development and mental well-being. From mouse wheels to marathoners, this episode offers a compelling look at why breaking a sweat might ...
Jun 18, 2025•10 min
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has fired the experts on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, sparking concern among public health officials. Ocean acidification has crossed a critical threshold, posing serious risks to marine life around the globe. And pangolins face growing threats from increased hunting, complicating efforts to protect the world’s most trafficked mammal. This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientifi...
Jun 16, 2025•10 min
Most mammalian dads are pretty absent from their offspring’s lives. That sets the Djungarian hamster apart from its fellow fathers. These hamster dads are involved in the birth of their pups, care for them in infancy and even provide food during weaning. They also let the mother hamster go on cooldown walks outside of the burrow, which professor of veterinary medicine and hamster expert Katherine Wynne-Edwards thinks could be essential to the survival of the species in its superharsh environment...
Jun 13, 2025•13 min
Animals’ lifespans can be far shorter or much longer than those of humans. Scientists are researching creatures such as “immortal” jellyfish and long-lived tortoises and digging deep into genetic codes to figure out why animals age—and what we can do to improve longevity in humans. João Pedro de Magalhães, chair of molecular biogerontology at the University of Birmingham in England, lays out the state of aging science. Recommended reading: Follow de Magalhães’s lab: https://rejuvenomicslab.com/ ...
Jun 11, 2025•14 min
New simulations suggest the Milky Way’s long-predicted collision with Andromeda might be less of a cosmic certainty than we thought. A massive marine heat wave in 2023 sent North Atlantic temperatures soaring—equal to two decades’ worth of typical warming—with weak winds and climate change largely to blame. And researchers reveal that the planet’s most abundant animals—nematodes—may use teamwork and tower-building to hitch rides to new homes. Recommended reading: This ‘Tower of Worms’ Is a Squir...
Jun 09, 2025•9 min
The dedicated staff of the National Weather Service are responsible for the data that underpin your weather forecast and emergency alerts. DOGE Service cuts to the NWS are putting the collection and communication of those data at risk right as we enter a dangerous season of hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and extreme heat in the U.S. Senior sustainability editor Andrea Thompson joins host Rachel Feltman to explain what the NWS does, why we need its expertise and what we risk when that expertise...
Jun 06, 2025•14 min
The measles outbreak in West Texas is slowing. Health officials think an increase in vaccination rates contributed to the slowdown, but Texas lawmakers have pushed a new bill to make it even quicker and easier for parents to exempt their children from vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes counter to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists by removing recommendations for COVID vaccines for pregnant people and children without underlying health conditions. T...
Jun 02, 2025•8 min
Are you flourishing? It’s a more understated metric than happiness, but it can provide a multidimensional assessment of our quality of life. Victor Counted, an associate professor of psychology at Regent University and a member of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, joins host Rachel Feltman to review the first wave of results from the five-year, 22-country Global Flourishing Study. Counted reflects on the difficulty of applying a universal concept to varied cultural contexts an...
May 30, 2025•18 min
Male infertility is undercovered and underdiscussed. If a couple is struggling to conceive, there’s a 50–50 chance that sperm health is a contributing factor. Diagnosing male infertility is getting easier with at-home tests—and a new study suggests a method for testing at home that would be more accurate. Study co-author Sushanta Mitra, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, joins host Rachel Feltman to discuss how lower sperm adhesion co...
May 28, 2025•11 min
Dolphins have a broad vocabulary. They vocalize with whistles, clicks and “burst pulses.”This varied communication makes it challenging for scientists to decode dolphin speech. Artificial intelligence can help researchers process audio and find the slight patterns that human ears may not be able to identify. Reporter Melissa Hobson took a look at DolphinGemma, a large language model created by Google in collaboration with the Wild Dolphin Project and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The proj...
May 23, 2025•19 min
Mitochondria are known as the powerhouse of the cell—but new research suggests they might be far more complex. Columbia University’s Martin Picard joins Scientific American ’s Rachel Feltman to explore how these tiny organelles could be communicating and what that might mean for everything from metabolism to mental health. Check out Martin Picard’s full article in the June issue of Scientific American . Tell us what you think! Take our survey for the chance to win some SciAm swag! E-mail us at s...
May 21, 2025•27 min
Soviet-era spacecraft Kosmos-482 lands, though no one is certain where. Physicists turn lead into gold. Overdose deaths are down, in part thanks to the availability of naloxone. Flamingos make underwater food tornadoes. Chimps use leaves as a multi-tool. Recommended reading: A New, Deadly Era of Space Junk Is Dawning, and No One Is Ready https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacex-dropped-space-junk-on-my-neighbors-farm-heres-what-happened-next/ Physicists Turn Lead into Gold—For a Fractio...
May 19, 2025•8 min
The year-round sea ice in the Arctic is melting and has shrunk by nearly 40 percent over the past four decades. Geoengineering companies such as Real Ice are betting big on refreezing it. That may sound ridiculous, impractical or risky—but proponents say we have to try. The U.K. government seems to agree, investing millions into experimental approaches such as Real Ice’s. Pulitzer Center Ocean Reporting Fellow Alec Luhn is taking us with him to the Arctic to see what it takes to freeze sea ice i...
May 16, 2025•25 min
Measles was technically “eliminated” in the U.S. in 2000 thanks to high measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates. While prior outbreaks have made headlines, a slew of cases in West Texas is more than just newsworthy—it could cause the U.S. to lose elimination status. Associate health and medicine editor Lauren Young explains what elimination means, why measles cases are rising and how to prevent further transmission. Recommended reading: Measles Was ‘Eliminated’ in the U.S. in 2000. Th...
May 14, 2025•10 min
A 1970s Soviet spacecraft is hurtling down from space—and no one knows where it will land. All 28 of the most populous cities in the U.S. are slowly sinking. Investments and overconsumption make the wealthiest 10 percent of the global population responsible for two thirds of climate-change-related warming. Recommended reading: Cuttlefish May Communicate with Discolike Arm Gestures https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cuttlefish-may-communicate-with-discolike-arm-gestures/ This Soviet Space...
May 12, 2025•8 min
We’re taking a field trip to the U.S.’s only particle collider, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), housed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Staff scientist Alex Jentsch takes listeners through some basic terminology and interconnected technologies that help Brookhaven researchers probe questions about our unseen universe. The RHIC is winding down in preparation for the new Electron-Ion Collider, which could help us discover the secrets of the “glue” that holds visible matter together. ...
May 09, 2025•18 min
