Science and reality
The Pokémon franchise, including its recent game Pokémon Pokopia, is inspired by real animals and their ecology. It’s no surprise that so many scientists love to try and “catch ’em all”
As rich ore gets harder to find, the mining industry is using subatomic particles to map rock deep underground
Science in meter and verse
Letters to the editors for the January 2026 issue of Scientific American
Biologists are racing to save America’s freshwater mussels—the water-filtering keystone species that once filled the country’s rivers and streams—from extinction
Take apart the grid in this math puzzle
Scientists finally understand why birds were the only dinosaurs to pull through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction
At Givaudan and IFF, chemists build—and safeguard—new aroma molecules tightly linked to emotion and memory
Modern luxury watches can be traced back to one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s younger sisters