SCIENCE
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Readers Respond to the July/August 2025 Issue
HIGH TESTOSTERONE I’m grateful for the warnings threaded through Stephanie Pappas’s “The Truth about Testosterone” and would like to elaborate from personal experience. As a transgender man, I adore the effects of testosterone. But I discovered some unwelcome ones when my levels climbed. My higher dosage was accidental; I assumed my doctor wanted me to increase it each week until…
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Scientists Create 3.3 Trillion Degree Particle Soup to Mimic the Universe Just after the Big Bang
November 15, 2025 2 min read Scientists Measure the Temperature of the Universe Just after the Big Bang Quark-gluon plasma, a bizarre state of matter that mimics the early cosmos, is the hottest thing ever made on Earth By Clara Moskowitz edited by Lee Billings Image of two gold beams colliding at near the speed of light June 14, 2000.…
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IEA Now Predicts Oil and Gas Demand Will Rise beyond 2030, Departing from Previous Forecasts
November 12, 2025 2 min read IEA Now Predicts Oil and Gas Demand Will Rise beyond 2030, Departing from Previous Forecasts The International Energy Agency says weak climate action and energy security fears are effectively delaying peak fossil fuel consumption By Humberto Basilio edited by Claire Cameron Anton Petrus/Getty Images The International Energy Agency predicts global demand for oil and…
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AI Slop—How Every Media Revolution Breeds Rubbish and Art
November 8, 2025 4 min read The Slop Cycle—How Every Media Revolution Breeds Rubbish and Art The popularization of the term “slop” for AI output follows a centuries-long pattern where new tools flood the zone, audiences adapt and some of tomorrow’s art emerges from today’s excess By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Clara Moskowitz Old metal printing letters used for…
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Black Hole ‘Superflare’ Is the Strongest Ever Seen
November 6, 2025 3 min read Record-Breaking Black Hole Blast Reveals Star’s Final Moments A “superflare” 10 trillion times brighter than the sun is confirmed as the record holder for luminosity By Jenna Ahart & Nature magazine Black holes can get energy boosts by ‘snacking’, although their dish of choice is rather different from our own. Analysis suggests that the…
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Why Hurricane Melissa Was One of the Most Powerful Atlantic Storms in History
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Today we’re mainly going to focus on one major story from last week: Hurricane Melissa. Here to tell us more about this historic storm is Scientific American senior editor Andrea Thompson. Andrea, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for coming on to talk through this.…
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The Interplanetary Race to Study Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS
When Comet 3I/ATLAS roared into the solar system this summer, it launched a scientific scramble to study what astronomers were quickly able to determine was only the third known interstellar object to zip through our celestial neighborhood. And that science quickly went interplanetary. In early October, just three months after astronomers first spotted Comet 3I/ATLAS, NASA and European Space Agency…
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China’s Chang’e 6 Mission Found Rare Meteorite Fragments on Moon
October 28, 2025 3 min read Surprise Meteorite Debris Uncovered on Moon’s Far Side These rare samples, uncovered on the moon by China’s Chang’e 6 mission, might help to reveal secrets of how the solar system evolved By Jenna Ahart & Nature magazine Sifting through the first-ever rock samples collected from the far side of the Moon, scientists in China…
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Ancient DNA Reveals New Diseases behind Napoleon’s 1812 Russian Retreat
October 24, 2025 3 min read Napoleon’s Defeat in Russia Was Aided by Two Surprising Deadly Diseases Disease-causing bacteria that have been recently discovered in the teeth of Napoleonic soldiers may have spurred the massive infantry’s demise during its retreat from Russia By Andrea Tamayo edited by Dan Vergano Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Adolph Northen; Public Domain In 1812 Napoleon…
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Google Measures ‘Quantum Echoes’ on Willow Quantum Computer Chip
October 22, 2025 4 min read Google Explores Quantum Chaos on Its Most Powerful Quantum Computer Chip “Quantum echoes” rippling through Google’s quantum computer chip Willow could lead to advances in molecular chemistry and the physics of black holes By Dan Garisto edited by Lee Billings Google’s Willow quantum computer chip. Quantum computers are still in their infancy. Presently limited…
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