When life feels difficult, humor can be a coping mechanism that relieves stress and offers the breathing room to keep going, ...

We need targeted public health interventions to reduce transmission from asymptomatically infected individuals. Like COVID, ...

A renowned psychiatrist and activist compares Trump’s election to other pivotal historical moments in which the ultimate ...

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 ...

The world we live in was built on horseback. Many people today rarely encounter horses, but this is a recent development. Only a few decades ago domestic horses formed the fabric of societies ...

Even before I could make out the silhouette of Platform Holly on the foggy horizon, I could see and smell oil. Ripples of iridescent liquid floated on the sea’s surface, reflecting the cloudy sky.

The fungal network hidden under fleshy, white king oyster mushrooms doesn’t just sprout elegant appetizers. It can also serve as a keen robotic sensor, helping to pilot a wheeled bot and a ...

From long and winding migration flights to intricate songs and clever tool use, many bird behaviors are known to be transmitted socially and persist across generations—what scientists define as ...

I enjoyed “Turning Down the Food Noise” [The New Science of Diet, Health and Appetite], Lauren J. Young’s article on the influence of satiety path­ways on food intake and how glucagonlike ...

A finger-sized clay cylinder from a tomb in northern Syria appears to be the oldest example of writing using an alphabet ...

Hypochondria can, in extreme cases, leave people unable to hold down a job or make it impossible for them to leave the house, ...

Scientists are piecing together the brain processes that underlie the wide-eyed wanting-to-know we generally think of as ...