Scientific American

GIF showing several horses galloping majestically across a meadow.

AnimalsFebruary 16, 2026

Celebrate the Year of the Horse with equine science

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse—so saddle up for some equine science

Meghan Bartels

A thin, orange ring outlines a black circle

Space & PhysicsFebruary 17, 2026

First solar eclipse of 2026 blazes a ‘ring of fire’ above Antarctica

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

People walk a debris-lined flooded street

Climate ChangeFebruary 17, 2026

How climate change made deadly floods in Spain even worse

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

Illustration of AI in clinical care, showing tech-driven clipboards

Artificial IntelligenceFebruary 17, 2026

AI enters the exam room

Hilke Schellmann

GamesFebruary 17, 2026

Spellements: Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Emma R. Hasson

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Lights illuminate NASA’s Artemis II SLS (Space Launch System) rocket and Orion spacecraft at Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 18, 2026.

SpacecraftFebruary 17, 2026

NASA sets a date for redo of key Artemis II test

Claire Cameron

Portrait of Joseph McCullen against a blue background

Artificial IntelligenceFebruary 17, 2026

This civil rights lawyer uses AI to battle the FBI

Deni Ellis Béchard

Portrait of Stephanie Dinkins against a blue background

Artificial IntelligenceFebruary 17, 2026

She asked a robot about race. The answer scared her

Deni Ellis Béchard

Portrait of Christopher Sharp against a blue background

Artificial IntelligenceFebruary 17, 2026

The AI scribe that lets doctors stop typing and start listening

Deni Ellis Béchard

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March 2026 Issue

Woman walking through a city scene wearing AI-enabled devices including glasses, an earbud, and a necklace pendant.

Artificial Intelligence

Inside the new AI world order: A special report

Eric Sullivan

Illustration of AI in clinical care, showing tech-driven clipboards

Artificial Intelligence

AI enters the exam room

Hilke Schellmann

Illustration of a person in a hoodie, covering their face, working on a computer ominously

Artificial Intelligence

A deepfake can ruin you before breakfast

Eric Sullivan

Grid of six images. Each panel holds a red glowing dot in a black field.

Astronomy

Exotic black hole stars could explain the mystery of Little Red Dots

Rebecca Boyle

View through a window into a living room. Three people are sitting on a couch in an animated conversation, with hands intertwined

Psychology

The truth about polyamory

Rebecca J. Lester

Image of new paleontological site

Paleontology

Mountain photographer stumbles on one of the largest ever collections of Triassic dinosaur prints

Humberto Basilio

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Games

A robot hand reaches toward bubbles with letters in them

Spellements

Create as many words as you can!

Illustration of a hand and multiple numbers against a purple background.

Math Puzzles

Stretch your math muscles with these puzzles.

A robot hand unleashes a swirl of puzzle pieces, crosswords, and circles with numbers and letters

All Games

Science inspired games, puzzles and quizzes

Special Edition

Photographs of 3D-printed shapes show soft cells derived from space filling polyhedra. Blue is derived from a truncated octahedron, pink is from a hexagonal prism and green is from a cube.

Mathematics

Mathematicians Discover a New Kind of Shape That’s All over Nature

Elise Cutts

Many discrete loops. Each looks like a close shape made of a continuous black line drawn in 3D space.

Mathematics

Mathematicians’ Favorite Shapes Hold the Key to Big Mathematical Mysteries

Rachel Crowell, Violet Frances

Colorful abstract illustration

Neurology

How Squishy Math Is Revealing Doughnuts in the Brain

Kelsey Houston-Edwards

Jar full of gumballs

Cognition

Babies Are Born with an Innate Number Sense

Jacob Beck, Sam Clarke

Pool balls inside a roulette and a group of people coming out of half open ball shells on the ground.

Mathematics

Citizens’ Assemblies Are Upgrading Democracy: Fair Algorithms Are Part of the Program

Ariel Procaccia

Illustration of geometric pieces.

Mathematics

Inside Mathematicians’ Search for the Mysterious ‘Einstein Tile’

Craig S. Kaplan

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Podcasts

Illustration of the emissions released by vehicles on a road

February 16, 2026

Trump guts climate policy, polar vortex disrupts winter, and Olympic ‘Penisgate’ rumors fly

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Andrea Thompson, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

Conceptual image of two skulls kissing on a pink background

Evolutionary BiologyFebruary 13, 2026

A kiss is a tender act of love. How it originated remains a mystery

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Sushmita Pathak, Alex Sugiura

An image of Heated Rivalry actors Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams smiling and standing side by side.

LanguageFebruary 11, 2026

Heated Rivalry: The linguistics behind Ilya’s Russian

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Allison Parshall, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

A baby laying on their tummy with their arms up.

Space ExplorationFebruary 9, 2026

Babies keep the beat as Artemis slips, solar flares blast and PFAS rise

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Claire Cameron, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

An illustration of a man holding his head with a digram of his brain showing.

Mental IllnessFebruary 6, 2026

Psychiatry’s rule book faces a major rethink

Kendra Pierre-Louis, Allison Parshall, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura

Discussions

Tell us about your experience exploring public lands!

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Are you participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count? Tell us what birds you see where you are!

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Popular Stories

A ski jumper swoops through the air, leaving behind a blur

SportsFebruary 12, 2026

The physics of ‘Penisgate’ and how ski jumpers fly

A scandal involving allegedly enlarged ski suits ahead of this year’s Winter Olympics has highlighted the intriguing physics behind ski jumps

Jackie Flynn Mogensen

Person playing video game on computer with neon green lighting

MathematicsFebruary 16, 2026

The mathematical mystery inside the legendary ’90s shooter Quake 3

Deep within the source code of this online multiplayer game lies an enigmatic number that puzzles and inspires experts to this day

Manon Bischoff

Illustration of galaxies in a spinning filament, featured as a zoomed in view of a cosmic web background

CosmologyFebruary 16, 2026

Astronomers spot one of the largest spinning structures in the universe

This enormous chain of hundreds of galaxies—a cosmic filament—is twisting through space 400 million light-years away

Humberto Basilio

A woman crouches down in preparation to throw a curling rock

GeologyFebruary 10, 2026

The quirky geology behind Olympic curling stones

The rocks used in the Olympic sport of curling come from one island in Scotland and one quarry in Wales. What makes them so special?

Andrea Thompson

GIF showing several horses galloping majestically across a meadow.

AnimalsFebruary 16, 2026

Celebrate the Year of the Horse with equine science

According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the Year of the Horse—so saddle up for some equine science

Meghan Bartels

A sphere of light explodes from a single point.

CosmologyFebruary 10, 2026

What came before the big bang?

Physicists cannot access anything that existed before the start of time and space, but they have theories

Sarah Scoles

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