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Today:
Physicists trap a single antimatter particle for a month
NEWS | 22 October 2026
But now physicists have managed to trap a single subatomic particle of the stuff for months at a time in a way that allows them to study its quantum states. To build their trap, physicists started with atoms of sodium 22, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of about two and a half years. Gerald Gabrielse (top right) and his team in the lab where they trapped a positron particle for a month. “We’re looking to see if they have an exactly opposite magnetic moment,” Gabrielse says. The magnetic moment measurement is just one of many realms where physicists are seeking differences between matter and antimatter to account for this profound discrepancy.

Top Stories:
How what we see and hear feed together to help us understand emotions
NEWS | 22 October 2026
For decades, scientists thought that in order to read other people’s emotions, the brain processed sensory information from faces and voices in separate areas. Audio-only clips activated brain regions known to process faces, and video-only clips activated brain regions that process voices. This ability may help the brain understand situations in which you can’t see a person but can hear them, such as when talking on the phone—or vice versa. They also support previous research on brain plasticity that has found that in people with early deafness, voice-selective brain regions adapt to process facial expressions. These regions may be able to adapt in these ways because their main aim is to process emotions, not single senses, she says.

World:
What actually makes ultraprocessed foods unhealthy?
NEWS | 22 October 2026
This diet is quite healthy and meets federal dietary guidelines—yet almost all of the calories come from ultraprocessed foods. In countries such as the U.S. and the U.K., ultraprocessed foods make up at least half of the average diet. Unsurprisingly, about 90 percent of the calories that people consumed from ultraprocessed foods came from items that were high in nutrients to avoid. Instead it suggests that the “ultraprocessed” framing isn’t the best place to begin to understand a food’s health effects. Other large studies have also found that the link between ultraprocessed foods and disease risk is being driven by specific types of foods within the category.

Current Events:
The mechanics of honeybee stingers, microplastic health risks and new findings on postmenopausal ovaries
NEWS | 22 October 2026
Building off of previous work in mice, the study examined normal ovarian tissue from 28 postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 75. Lots of additives commonly used in plastics, like flame retardants and colorants, are prone to leach out into surrounding materials. In fact, the very geometry of microplastics could make them more hazardous to human health. Try to avoid microwaving food in plastic, and keep bottled water away from sunlight exposure which can cause the bottles to degrade. When worker bees sting a target and then fly away, they leave their stingers behind—and those stingers keep, well, stinging.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 22 October 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

News Flash:
A Wall Is Also a Road explores alien consciousness, slime mold life-forms and Pompeii
NEWS | 22 October 2026
I’m really, really enjoying it. And so when they find humans, they’re kind of like, “What the heck is this?” [Laughs.] They’re a protist, meaning, you know, they’re, like, kind of like amoebas. I mean, I think they’re all very beautiful, but, you know, they’re slimy, especially when they group together in, in large quantities. They are based on a slime mold, and I did talk to a slime mold biologist to, you know, get some evidence-based, uh, descriptions of slime molds.

Latest:
Alarm grows over Russian satellite’s provocative approach to U.S.-owned satellite
NEWS | 22 October 2026
A short time-lapse image shows the Russian satellite KOSMOS-2612 ( fainter dot at right ) chasing the Finnish-American satellite ICEYE-X36 ( bright dot at left ) over South America on the morning of October 18, 2026. How close is too close for encounters between sensitive spacecraft orbiting Earth? With a mysterious approach to another satellite, Russia’s military may be trying to find outA Russian satellite came dangerously close to a Finnish-American satellite this weekend in a provocative maneuver that could foreshadow the new norm for space warfare. Such a maneuver is not inherently aggressive or ill-intentioned, says Victoria Samson, head of space policy at the Secure World Foundation. “This kind of thing can change quickly, but I would hold off hysterical speculation until we know more about it.”

Breaking:
The Selfish Gene at 50
NEWS | 22 October 2026
As its title suggests, The Selfish Gene argued that evolution is driven by selfish competition among the “fundamental particles” of inheritance: genes. In The Selfish Gene, “there are at least four [different] uses of ‘selfish’ that we glide between,” Ågren says. A focus on what any given model leaves out can cut both ways, however: occasional “selfish” gene conflicts really can occur. If that were so, the “selfish gene” hypothesis would seem now disproven in general. All this is to say that despite (or even because of) its myriad interpretive confusions, The Selfish Gene is still relevant.

Trending:
Republican congressional candidate Tom Stalcup on how both parties abuse science for political gain
NEWS | 22 October 2026
That long-shot status seems to have offered Stalcup a little more freedom—he’s distanced himself from the party’s standard line on issues such as climate change and drug pricing. Our remote weather stations are situated all around the world, and their data is purchased by researchers studying climate change. And of course, I’m not avoiding the climate change issue because I completely agree—even as a Republican—that climate change is real and human-caused. Science cuts both ways, and that’s why I say, “Science over politics.”Throughout my life, I saw a deterioration in the U.S. media, where we were just given misinformation. You acknowledge that climate change is real and measurable.

This Just In:
Biohackers say this supplement lets you drink coffee at night. No one knows if it’s safe
NEWS | 22 October 2026
Every day, as many as nine in 10 Americans drink a caffeinated beverage, increasingly in a stronger form such as an energy drink. To get around this, biohackers are turning to an unproven supplement to try flush caffeine out their bodies fast. That’s why some people find themselves unable to wind down at night after a 3 P.M. coffee. People who promote rutaecarpine say it increases the level of CYP1A2 in your body, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of coffee without delaying sleep. Paraxanthine, the compound that caffeine is converted to in the body, has also been picking up steam as a supplement among biohackers.

Today:
The provocative new theory that could explain aging and disease
NEWS | 22 October 2026
“Everybody agrees that mitochondrial dysfunction is part of aging biology,” says Matt Kaeberlein, former director of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute at the University of Washington. “If you’re going to argue that everything starts with mitochondrial dysfunction, I think most people would push back against that.” But the idea doesn’t need to explain all of aging to be worth chasing. “Mitochondrial dysfunction may contribute to the vast majority of common diseases,” he says. These reactive oxygen species, or ROS, can do real damage to mitochondria, cells and organs. “Hippocrates knew about it 2,000 years ago,” says Christopher Palmer, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and author of the 2022 book Brain Energy.

Top Stories:
See the Orionids meteor shower at its peak this week
NEWS | 22 October 2026
See one of the most iconic meteor showers at its peak this weekI agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American Inc. Privacy Policy . Bright flashes of shooting stars are set to streak across the night sky this week as the Orionids meteor shower hits its peak—and if you’re lucky (and patient), you could spot dozens of these meteors. The Orionids’ shooting stars are particularly fast and bright. As that debris hits our atmosphere, it burns up, creating the light shows we know as meteor showers and love to view. Plus, the Taurid meteor showers, which have been shooting across the sky since September, are set to peak next month: you can catch the Southern Taurids’ peak on November 4–5 and the Northern Taurids’ peak on November 11–12.

World:
The first mission to sample Mars’s moons launches today
NEWS | 22 October 2026
In August 2027 the Mars Moons Exploration (MMX) mission is expected to reach Mars, where it will observe Phobos and Deimos for a few years before it lands on Phobos in 2031. But you probably don’t think of “moons,” even though Mars actually has two, named Phobos and Deimos. On Monday afternoon EDT, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch its Martian Moons Exploration mission (MMX). “But there’s real science here.”One of the biggest questions MMX could answer concerns the origins of Mars’s moons. Bringing physical samples back to Earth is “one of the most scientifically bountiful things that you can do with a space mission,” Stahl says.

Current Events:
Here’s what scientists think about Theranos a decade after it imploded
NEWS | 22 October 2026
A decade after Theranos imploded, here’s what scientists want you to knowI agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American Inc. Privacy Policy . Around a decade ago Theranos, one of the buzziest science start-ups ever, imploded. Swamped by allegations of fraud, the actions of the company and its enigmatic CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, shone a harsh light on problems with scientific start-ups. He creates blood testing products for conditions such as sickle cell anemia. A drop of blood doesn’t hold nearly enough biological information to conduct the hundreds of tests that Theranos claimed.

Sponsored:
SmartSync Data Sync App
SPONSORED | 22 October 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here