Scientific American

Pigeons seem to defy a century-old psychology law about how rewards and consequences help us learn

Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers, studies show

Working memory is the information we need to access to complete the tasks we’re engaged in right now, and scientists think it may be closely entwined with consciousness

Female mammals have long thought to be born with all the eggs they would ever have, but new research is challenging that consensus

Trying to kill algae with chemicals is a common response when community ponds or other water features go green, but a freshwater ecologist says there may be safer and more effective solutions

New archaeology has uncovered everything from musket balls to wig curlers at the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first major clash of the American Revolution

China’s Tianwen-2 aims to collect samples from asteroid Kamo’oalewa and return them to Earth

Start your morning with today’s Spellements. Create as many words as you can from our daily selection of letters—including one tied to recent science news. Play now.

The space agency has put out a call for its Moon & Mars Exploration Analog, which recreates the challenges of a long-duration space mission

The exoplanet telescope TESS revealed a distant world using an entirely different detection method than the one it was built around

Some IVF clinics are using AI to perform tasks such as sperm and embryo selection, but some fertility experts question whether the technology will lead to more live births

The rocket's red glare has nothing on these images from Chandra X-ray Observatory

Famed AI wins in Go let human players rethink their moves in a whole new way

The hominins may have gone on adventures, but they lacked key skills of modern humans

The moon is Earth’s constant companion. But will that always be the case?

Training people to pay attention to the right visual cues nearly doubled how accurately they could spot AI-generated faces

People in the U.S. experience more, and more intense, heat waves than the Founding Fathers would have

This new group, which is led by Harvard professor Avi Loeb, aims to advise the Trump administration and the U.S. intelligence community, as well as to publish its findings in peer-reviewed journals

The way women use energy while running is fundamentally different from men

A heat wave over the Fourth of July weekend could put millions at risk of heat-related illnesses. Here’s what to do to stay safe—and why you don’t just need to drink lots of water

A new study claims that the universe isn’t entirely the same no matter where you look—a radical proposal

Chat apps, e-mail, and cloud files have become the primary record of how power is exercised. Archivists are trying to preserve them before formats go dark or messages disappear without a trace

Construction of the Deep Synoptic Array is about to start in rural Nevada. It will reveal untold galaxies in stunning detail and help explain how they form and grow

Sea surface temperatures in late June reached nearly 70 degrees Fahrenheit on average, shattering records

This “extraordinary” event was likely caused by seismic waves bouncing off Earth’s core, researchers found

A galaxy appears to be missing the invisible substance thought to hold such objects together, further challenging long-held assumptions about how galaxies form

Noether's work helped prove the conservation of energy in physics, a key foundation for Einstein's theory of relativity

How did we get here?

Some mathematicians have predicted when humanity’s downfall might occur—though the circumstances are unspecified

Two people were the first to receive the therapy for a condition that damages the spinal cord and optic nerve

The great American brain drain could define science for a generation

Mikhail Verbitsky was detained at an Armenian airport last Thursday on charges of inciting terrorism

Poor preparation and a failure to properly apply the coating may be just a few of the reasons why the Reflecting Pool’s new paint job appears to be peeling off

A new model flags people at high risk of sudden cardiac death from a routine ECG—and reveals a warning sign in the heart’s electrical activity

How Emmy Noether's theorem uses the Lagrangian to provide a formula for calculating the quantity of symmetries in a system—like the orbit of planets.

Knowing what kind of tick bit you and where you got it can help inform next steps

Fathers show changes in some of the same brain areas as mothers, but the effect of parenthood on dads isn’t nearly as well studied

The Trump administration wanted the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to be “American flag blue.” A water-treatment expert explains why the pool is still algal green and why the bloom could keep coming back

This operation opens the door to treating more people living with HIV who have end-stage organ disease