The Science of Spring’s Green Show
Spring’s burst of brightness comes before chloroplasts grow and mature
Stories by Clara Moskowitz
Clara Moskowitz is a senior editor at Scientific American, where she covers astronomy, space, physics and mathematics. She has been at Scientific American for a decade; previously she worked at Space.com. Moskowitz has reported live from rocket launches, space shuttle liftoffs and landings, suborbital spaceflight training, mountaintop observatories, and more. She has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University and a graduate degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
This Particle Accelerator Makes a Substance That Has Not Existed in 13 Billion Years
By using one of the most complicated and powerful machines on the planet, scientists have found a way to glimpse back to the very beginning of time itself.
How Do We Find Aliens? Maybe Unlearn What We Know About ‘Life’ First
Science might be redefining what “life out there” really means.
All the Gold in the Universe Was (Likely) Created This Way
For a long time, no one knew how “heavy metals” formed—or showed up on Earth. Now some new evidence finally points the way to an answer.
6 Marvelous Math Stories from 2022
Math made a splash this year. Here’s a look at the fascinating discoveries, mind-bending quests and important events in mathematics in 2022
How JWST Is Changing Our View of the Universe
The James Webb Space Telescope has sparked a new era in astronomy
Milky Way Census Shows Stars Take Varied Paths
The Gaia satellite is making the most detailed and complete map of the stars in our galaxy
Are the James Webb Space Telescope’s Pictures ‘Real’?
How the JWST’s cosmic images are made
The Best of JWST’s Cosmic Portraits
These new views of familiar space sights reveal details never before seen
Black Hole Mysteries Solved
Recent theoretical and observational results have revealed new secrets about these shadowy objects, with deep implications for more than just black holes themselves
Hawking, a Paradox and a Black Hole Mystery, Solved?
We do not have a theory to tell us everything about how a black hole works, but new research is shedding a least some light on one of their many mysteries.
What Is the Black Hole Information Paradox? A Primer
Black holes, wormholes, entanglement, Einstein, mysterious islands and new science that sees how the inside of a black hole is secretly on the outside.
See How Scientists Put Together the Complete Human Genome
For the first time, researchers have sequenced all 3,117,275,501 bases of our genetic code
Wildfires Followed by Severe Rain Will Become More Common
Graphics show how the two weather extremes will more often pair up
How the Higgs Boson Ruined Peter Higgs’s Life
A new biography of the physicist and the particle he predicted reveals his disdain for the spotlight
How Skin Cancer Rates Vary across the Globe
This leading cancer affects some populations and regions much more than others
Colonialism Casts a Shadow on Fossil Science
Paleontologists from a small number of countries control much of the world’s fossil data
Billionaire Space Tourism Has Become Insufferable
From brave exploration to just another playground for the 0.0000001 percent
How Measuring Time Shaped History
From Neolithic constructions to atomic clocks, how humans measure time reveals what we value most
What Is a Lagrange Point?
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will travel to a special spot where the gravity from Earth and the sun is balanced
Can Sterile Neutrinos Exist?
Physicists have wondered if neutrino particles come in a mysterious fourth variety. Now new experimental findings complicate the question
At Long Last, the James Webb Space Telescope Is Ready for Launch
The long-delayed successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is set to take flight in December
Climate Change Drives Escalating Drought
The past two decades have seen some of the most extreme dry periods in U.S. history
The Solar System’s Mysterious Magnetic Fields
Most of our neighboring planets have magnetic fields, but scientists do not fully understand how they arise