Scientific American

• Death by Fermented Food

  Some fermenting foods can carry the risk of a bacterium that produces an extremely strong toxin called bongkrekic acid

• Why Are ADHD Rates On the Rise?

  More than 1 in 10 children in the U.S. have ADHD, fueling debate over the condition and how to treat it

• How Close Are Today’s AI Models to AGI—And to Self-Improving into Superintelligence?

  Today’s leading AI models can already write and refine their own software. The question is whether that self-improvement can ever snowball into true superintelligence

• Why Leftover Pizza Is Actually Healthier: The Science of “Resistant Starch” Explained

  Researchers have discovered that cooling starchy foods—from pizza to rice—creates “resistant starch,” a carb that behaves like fiber and alters your blood sugar response

• Is a River Alive? A Conversation with Robert Macfarlane on Nature’s Sovereignty

  Scientific American sits down with nature writer Robert Macfarlane to discuss his latest book—one of our top picks of 2025—and whether a river has rights

• Was the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ Really a Comet?

  A scientist has identified a possible astronomical explanation for the Star of Bethlehem, as described in the Bible

• Plastic Pollution Will More than Double by 2040, Yielding a Garbage Truck's Worth of Waste Each Second

  An estimated 280 million metric tons of plastic waste will enter the air, water, soil, and human bodies every year by 2040, data shows

• What If the Moon Were Cheese? John Scalzi’s Latest Book Has the Answer

  Scientific American talks to the author of When the Moon Hits Your Eye, one of our best fiction picks for 2025

• CDC Vaccine Panel Scraps Guidance for Universal Hepatitis B Shots at Birth

  New guidance from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel would do away with a decades-old universal birth dose recommendation for hepatitis B that helped cut infections by 99 percent in the U.S.

• Daniel H. Wilson on Finding a Native Take on Traditional Alien Invasion Stories

  Hole in the Sky,by Daniel H. Wilson, is one of Scientific American’s best fiction picks of 2025. In the novel, aliens talk through an AI headset and land in the Cherokee Nation, while the military scrambles to contain and control the unknown