Social Sciences

Sometimes innovation can be traced back to bizarre places: a muddy streambed, a volcanic ash field or even a hotel-company boardroom

Science in meter and verse

Play this crossword inspired by the May 2026 issue of Scientific American

Synchronous fireflies; Grand Canyon fossil footprints

Letters to the editors for the January 2026 issue of Scientific American

Award winning duo James S. A. Corey show humanity’s struggle with staggering alien power in their latest installment of the Captive’s War series

A metagenomic study of this cloth, controversially purported to bear the imprint of the body of Jesus Christ, has little to say about the relic’s origins

A new archeological finding shows that Native Americans were exploring probability through games of chance far earlier than their Old World counterparts

An annual world happiness ranking for 2026 explores how the use of social media influences well-being

For 20 years, this computational linguistics competition has inspired new generations of innovators in AI and language preservation

Play this crossword inspired by the April 2026 issue of Scientific American

Letters to the editors for the December 2025 issue of Scientific American