Archives: Scientific American

Greenland Is Disappearing Quickly, and Scientists Have Found a New Reason Why
Meltwater from Greenland churns the ocean, speeding the loss of glaciers like stirring ice cubes in a glass of water

The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It
Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality

Extra Hard Space Diamonds May Have Formed in an Ancient Cosmic Collision
A new formation method for rare “lonsdaleite” diamonds may illuminate a better way to produce them on Earth

How Squishy Math Is Revealing Doughnuts in the Brain
Topology, sometimes called rubber sheet geometry, is finding patterns in the brain, drugs and evolution

Quantum Tunneling Makes DNA More Unstable
The freaky physics phenomenon of quantum tunneling may mutate genes

JWST’s First Glimpses of Early Galaxies Could Break Cosmology
The James Webb Space Telescope’s first images of the distant universe shocked astronomers. Is the discovery of unimaginably distant galaxies a mirage, or a revolution?

Black Hole Discovery Helps to Explain Quantum Nature of the Cosmos
New insights from black hole research may elucidate the cosmological event horizon

How to Fix Quantum Computing Bugs
The same physics that makes quantum computers powerful also makes them finicky. New techniques aim to correct errors faster than they can build up

Tiny Flier ‘Swims’ through the Air at Superspeed
A speck-sized beetle overturns assumptions about flight mechanics

How Migrating Birds Use Quantum Effects to Navigate
New research hints at the biophysical underpinnings of their ability to use Earth’s magnetic field lines to find their way to their breeding and wintering grounds