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An illustration of a human in a space suit, working alongside a team of robots.

Artificial Intelligence

AI is not ready to fly solo in space

In sci-fi, AI can navigate the unknowns and — ideally — keep human travelers safe. But it’s not intelligent enough to do that yet.

By Aaron Tremper1 hour ago

An illustration shows blue hubs filled with threadlike squiggles to denote tau in the brain. Fuzzy brown orbs represent amyloid plaques. Both are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease.

Health & Medicine

A new sort of Alzheimer’s drug shows glimmers of promise

By RJ Mackenzie17 hours ago

Climate

A new map traces the sky’s water highways

By Siddhant PusdekarJuly 14, 2026

A quasar illustrated as a bright white, yellow and orange disk of swirling material on a black background.

A quasar breaks the record for most distant supermassive black hole

By Lisa GrossmanJuly 14, 2026

A composite image of arms shows a person writing the number eight with the left hand and the right hand. The eight on the right is smoother.

Whether lefty or righty, practice makes the difference

By Laura SandersJuly 13, 2026

An illustration of two blue planets orbiting a faraway star.

Planetary Science

Meet the Milky Way’s puffiest planets

By Lisa GrossmanJuly 13, 2026

An image of Pluto showing the iconic heart-shaped nitrogen glacier that covers much of its surface.

Space

Pluto has landslides

By Katherine KorneiJuly 10, 2026

We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Spotlight on Health

An image featuring different types of birth control, including pills, condoms, a patch, contraceptive shot and more.

Support goes a long way to boost birth control effectiveness

The HER Salt Lake Contraceptive Initiative’s approach, which centered the user and made refills easy, meant all types of methods worked well.

By Aimee CunninghamJuly 9, 2026
Many U.S. teens underestimate fentanyl’s deadly risk
Acetaminophen in pregnancy shows no link to autism or ADHD, again

Science News Magazine

July 2026 cover of Science News

July 1, 2026 Vol. 208 No. 7

From Science News Investors Lab

Featured Media

A satellite image of hot sea surface temperatures, shown by shades of red and orange, in the eastern Pacific Ocean that signaled the start of an El Niño event.

Can geoengineering blunt El Niño’s fury?

Marine cloud brightening could cool part of the Pacific and weaken extreme El Niños, simulations suggest. But the approach could have risks.

Pickles glow when you plug them in. Science explains why

A landscape of a tropical rainforest canopy with trees of various heights

Giant trees have tricks to work around drought

a collage of images from items on display at the Smithsonian museum of natural history overlaid on a photo of the museum building. items include fossils, a bird, a crab, a bison, and butterflies.

The natural history of every U.S. state is on display at a new D.C. exhibit

A tan, long, skinny shark is seen on the seafloor resting on colorful rocks. It sports a pattern of dark brown spots and white dashes.

A new species of walking shark has been found in Papua New Guinea

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More Stories

Life

Can DEET attract mosquitoes? A lab study offers clues

By Erin Garcia de JesúsMay 28, 2026
Cows’ methane burps may be fueled by a newfound organelle in gut microbes

By Tina Hesman SaeyApril 30, 2026
Smithsonian secrets most likely to blow your mind

By Meghan Rosen and Stephen VossApril 14, 2026

Humans

Have a taste of our favorite food stories from 2025

By Carly KayDecember 24, 2025
‘Black Religion in the Madhouse’ examines psychiatry and race post-Civil War

By Aimee CunninghamDecember 12, 2025
Ancient southern Africans took genetic evolution in a new direction

By Bruce BowerDecember 3, 2025

Climate

A robot swarm is on a mission to map Greenland’s perilous ice sheets

By Mićo TatalovićJuly 7, 2026
A ‘Super El Niño’ may be on the way. What does that mean?

By Carolyn GramlingJune 17, 2026
The North Atlantic’s ‘cold blob’ may signal a major current’s decline

By Carolyn GramlingJune 15, 2026

Astronomy

Even quiet black holes create winds, new Milky Way observations reveal

By Mara Johnson-GrohJune 4, 2026
Astronomers may have found a record-breaking pair of black holes

By Mara Johnson-GrohMay 11, 2026
The earliest evidence of the first stars may lie in a distant gas clump

By Mara Johnson-GrohApril 24, 2026

Physics

A potential hindrance to fusion power may help instead

By Emily ConoverJune 24, 2026
Here’s what would happen if you tried to break a photon in half

By Maria TemmingJune 12, 2026
Clocks made from an atomic nucleus just ticked on for the first time

By Emily ConoverJune 11, 2026

Health & Medicine

Even ‘safe’ air pollution levels may affect heart health

By Isha IshtiaqJune 23, 2026
The New World screwworm has returned to the U.S. Now what?

By Fechi InyamaJune 22, 2026
A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

By Tina Hesman SaeyJune 17, 2026

Earth

A tropical permafrost layer in Peru may be one of the world’s largest

By Danielle BeurteauxJune 22, 2026
A 2011 earthquake bounced a seismic wave off Earth’s core, nudging Japan east

By Katherine KorneiJune 18, 2026
Earth’s stratosphere is a mysterious superhighway for microbes

By Douglas FoxJune 10, 2026

Science & Society

Here’s what happens when you put politicians in charge of science

By Tina Hesman SaeyJuly 10, 2026
Lost in Curiosity reveals the messy reality of doing science

By Shi En KimJuly 10, 2026
A discovery about this bat’s diet was hiding in a Renaissance painting

By Bethany BrookshireJune 29, 2026