This episode was made possible by the support of Yakult and produced independently by Scientific American‘s board of editors. Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. You’re listening to our weekly science news roundup, where we dive into some of the headlines you might have missed last week. We’ll… Continue reading A Newly Approved Vaccine Could Help Save Australia’s Koalas from a Deadly Chlamydia Epidemic
A Roadmap for Accelerating Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease affects millions worldwide, and while current treatments address symptoms, none slow or stop the disease. The discovery of a gene pathway that contributes to Parkinson’s risk has opened up a promising new avenue for developing therapies. Treatments that act on this pathway are now being tested in clinics. As part of an initiative… Continue reading A Roadmap for Accelerating Therapies for Parkinson’s Disease
Freaky ‘Rubber Hand’ Illusion Works on Octopuses, Too
In the classic “rubber hand” illusion, a participant is tricked into experiencing a fake arm on the table in front of them as their own: their brain “feels” the tickle of a feather or other stimuli they see applied to the fake arm. (The real arm is behind a partition.) Until now, only some mammals,… Continue reading Freaky ‘Rubber Hand’ Illusion Works on Octopuses, Too
How Ignoring Non-AI Demand Risks the Electric Grid
This commentary was originally published by The National Interest on December 12, 2025. The rising electricity demands of artificial intelligence (AI) have dominated recent headlines. Policymakers and utilities alike are scrambling to understand how the rapid expansion of AI data centers will reshape the power grid. But there’s a quieter story unfolding in parallel: the… Continue reading How Ignoring Non-AI Demand Risks the Electric Grid
Your Body Really Does Have a Case of the Mondays
For decades the term “Monday blues” has been shorthand for the collective groan that greets the start of each workweek. It’s also well documented in medical statistics. Mondays come with higher rates of anxiety, stress and even suicide compared with other days. Studies on the phenomenon across entire countries have found a 19 percent increase… Continue reading Your Body Really Does Have a Case of the Mondays
The UK’s New Veterans Strategy Wants to Reshape Veterans’ Roles in Society—Can It Succeed?
We often talk about the importance of “supporting our veterans,” but rarely ask what roles veterans have in modern society. Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, that question remains as salient as ever. The United Kingdom’s new Veterans Strategy (PDF), released last month, attempts to answer it. It goes beyond improving… Continue reading The UK’s New Veterans Strategy Wants to Reshape Veterans’ Roles in Society—Can It Succeed?
The Calvine UFO Sighting
Podcast: Download MYS395: In 1990, two men in Calvine, Scotland took photos of a strange object in the sky that would become the clearest UFO photos ever. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli ask what really happened in Calvine, what happened to the two men, and what was the flying object they photographed? Get all new… Continue reading The Calvine UFO Sighting
Death Rates from Chronic Diseases Dropped in Most Countries
September 15, 2025 3 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAm Death Rates from Chronic Diseases Dropped in Most Countries A report finds that death rates from cancer and heart disease have declined since 2010 in roughly 150 countries. Experts explain potential reasons why By Mohana Basu & Nature magazine Chiyoda ward in Tokyo was… Continue reading Death Rates from Chronic Diseases Dropped in Most Countries
David McCullough and the Study of History
One of the greatest weeks of my life was the week David McCullough came to teach a one-credit course at Hillsdale College in 2006. McCullough, the great writer and teacher of history, held forth on the craft of writing, led us in a discussion of a primary source reading from the pen of John Adams,… Continue reading David McCullough and the Study of History
Cryptographers Show That AI Protections Will Always Have Holes
A practical illustration of how to exploit this gap came in a paper posted in October. The researchers had been thinking about ways to sneak a malicious prompt past the filter by hiding the prompt in a puzzle. In theory, if they came up with a puzzle that the large language model could decode but… Continue reading Cryptographers Show That AI Protections Will Always Have Holes