Vaccine Panel Overhaul, Head Trauma in Sports, and Strange Reproduction in Ants Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the week with a quick roundup of some of the latest science news. First, let’s check in on vaccines. On Thursday and Friday of last week the […]

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was about the size of Mount Everest — so where is it now? Around 66 million years ago, the reign of the dinosaurs came to a fiery end. An asteroid about 7 miles (12 kilometers) wide, flying at 27,000 mph (43,000 km/h), slammed directly into Earth. The impact triggered […]

What drove the rise of civilizations? A decades-long quest points to warfare The Great Holocene Transformation: What Complexity Science Tells Us about the Evolution of Complex Societies Peter Turchin Beresta Books (2025) When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519, he found monarchs, cities, roads, markets, schools, astronomers, law courts and much else […]

is there any truth to it? Pregnant people have long relied on paracetamol for pain and fever. Credit: BSIP/Universal Images Group/Getty The painkiller acetaminophen or paracetamol is one of the most widely taken drugs during pregnancy, used by roughly half of all pregnant people worldwide. But today the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced […]

Real-time molecular recorders expose the inner lives of cells Illustration: The Project Twins Cells are poor storytellers. They live complex, eventful lives — dividing, migrating, responding to their environment. But by the time they reach the laboratory, whatever narrative they once carried is gone. Plucked from their native context and pinned beneath a microscope or […]

The Moon is rusting — thanks to ‘wind’ blown all the way from Earth A stream of charged particles that blows from Earth (foreground) to the Moon could account for the rust compounds found in lunar soils. Credit: Tetra Images/Alamy The Moon is rusting – and it’s Earth’s fault. Scientists have found that oxygen particles […]

COVID Vaccine Access Now Varies from State to State. Here’s What to Know Confusion over vaccine recommendations in the U.S. has hit a boiling point as the responsibility for handling them has spilled onto individual states. Regulators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have long provided trusted […]

Chimpanzee Consumption of Boozy Fruit May Illuminate Roots of Humanity’s Love of Alcohol September 17, 2025 3 min read Chimpanzee Consumption of Boozy Fruit May Illuminate Roots of Humanity’s Love of Alcohol Wild chimps ingest the equivalent of multiple alcoholic beverages a day By Kate Wong edited by Jeanna Bryner A chimpanzee eats fruit in […]

Vaccines Are at Risk, Fired CDC Director Warns Senators September 17, 2025 4 min read U.S. Vaccine Guidance Is in Chaos, Fired CDC Director Tells Senators Former CDC chief Susan Monarez testified that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., had demanded she rubber-stamp recommendations from his remade vaccine panel By Dan […]

Oldest Known Pachycephalosaur Fossil Discovered in Mongolia September 17, 2025 3 min read Meet the Oldest Dome-Headed Dinosaur Ever Found A newly discovered dinosaur species has been identified from a fossil unearthed in Mongolia that represents the most complete pachycephalosaur specimen yet found By Jack Tamisiea edited by Andrea Thompson Artist’s reconstruction of the newly […]