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Today:
Why AI is speeding up scientific research but not lab experiments
NEWS | 21 September 2026
A new report from Google, Google DeepMind and M.I.T. People have spent years expecting AI to change how new medicines are discovered, for example. But those advances haven’t translated into anything like the same acceleration for drug discovery or experimental biological research. A report out this week from Google, Google DeepMind and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s MIT FutureTech quantifies some of the gaps. “They’re still fairly limited in the kinds of experiments that can be automated, mostly some chemistry experiments,” Zou says.

Top Stories:
See the first new species of cat discovered in more than a century—it’s adorable
NEWS | 21 September 2026
See the first new species of cat discovered in more than a century—it’s adorableI agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American Inc. Privacy Policy . The new species, Leopardus tilcayo, is a type of tiger cat, a group of small felines in the genus Leopardus that are native to South America. A man had brought one of the kitties into the sanctuary that she volunteered at, and she noticed that it didn’t quite match any existing tiger cat species. After a series of genetic tests, she and her team discovered the cat must be a new species that had likely diverged from its closest tiger cat relative some 1.4 million years ago. “Describing a new cat species after more than 100 years shows how much we still have to learn about the biodiversity around us.

World:
October 2026: Science history from 50, 100 and 150 years ago
NEWS | 21 September 2026
1976, Social Order of Macaques: “Researchers observed a so-called subleader policing episode in a group of macaques. As of the end of August, only five villages had experienced cases in the preceding eight weeks. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. This article was written by Donald A. Henderson, who was chief medical officer in charge of smallpox eradication at the World Health Organization. 1926Wonder of the Commonplace“There is nothing in all of nature more wonderful than anything else when we stop to think about it.

Current Events:
Why Bangladesh’s measles outbreak is a cautionary tale for the U.S.
NEWS | 21 September 2026
Measles rates in the country hovered around 100 to 300 cases total between 2021 and 2025. The fastest, most effective way to combat a measles outbreak, she says, is widespread vaccination. In April Bangladesh health officials initiated a large-scale measles vaccination campaign, targeting some 18 million children. For example, in Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the 2025 West Texas outbreak, kindergarteners’ measles vaccination rate was 82 percent compared with about 93 percent nationally. “Anyone who wants a measles vaccine [in the U.S.] can go get one,” she says.

News Flash:
What changing ‘Lake Ontario’ to ‘Lake America’ means for weather forecasts
NEWS | 21 September 2026
The change from the name “Lake Ontario” to “Lake America” was mandated on August 27 in an executive order by President Donald Trump. What this means is that all executive branch references to the Great Lake, including maps, forecasts and warnings put out by the National Weather Service (NWS) and its parent organization, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to read Lake America ASAP. (A previous executive order had similarly decreed that “Gulf of Mexico” would be changed to “Gulf of America” on all government documents.) The code for a computer system called AWIPS that every one of the nation’s 122 forecast offices uses to receive data and transmit forecasts and weather warnings will need to be updated. Some of this will happen at the level of NWS national headquarters, but local offices will also have to make changes.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 21 September 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

Latest:
How much longer will the sun shine?
NEWS | 21 September 2026
This fusion process in the sun’s core is actually quite complex. Squeezed by the mounting pressure, the core shrinks and heats up, which, in turn, makes the sun shine brighter. At that point, it’s very likely our planet will no longer be able to support life. Shell helium fusion is extremely sensitive to temperature, and even tiny changes in the core will cause the rate of fusion to fluctuate wildly. No longer generating energy, it will cool and darken over billions more years to fade away into a black dwarf.

Breaking:
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope glimpses its first cosmic light
NEWS | 21 September 2026
This test image captures the very first photons of starlight to reach the Wide Field Instrument on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has caught its first glimpses of cosmic light—a major step on the road to beaming back unprecedented images and data about our galaxy and the wider universe. The telescope activated its Wide Field Instrument (WFI) on September 11, initiating the preliminary setup for Roman’s highly sensitive 300-megapixel camera. That will allow the telescope to study more than 50 times as much of the sky in its planned five years of operation as the Hubble Space Telescope has in 30 years of work. All the systems are working as expected—good news as we wait for Roman to become fully operational.

Trending:
This dolphin terrifies fish until they puke—and then eats it
NEWS | 21 September 2026
This dolphin has a gross solutionI agree my information will be processed in accordance with the Scientific American Inc. Privacy Policy . New videos reveal how a male dolphin has perfected a never-before-seen hunting technique for his species: he terrorizes fish until they vomit—and then feeds on their regurgitated food. The nasty catch goes as follows: The dolphin approaches a school of fish and searches for a specific target. The chase continues until the fish vomits whatever food it has in its belly, and the dolphin quickly snaps up the regurgitated material. ‘’A dolphin can perform a complex feeding behavior several meters underwater, and we may never know exactly what happened,” he says.

This Just In:
Anthropic’s AI steals mathematicians’ record for most complicated curve
NEWS | 21 September 2026
For decades, mathematicians have been chasing elliptic curves with ever more complicated patterns and have made very slow progress. The underlying elliptic curves of the equations seem quite simple—they have the form y2 = x3 + Ax + B. Most recently, after an 18-year hiatus, an elliptic curve with a degree of at least 29 was discovered in August 2024. To construct this curve, experts formed a cross section of objects in higher dimensions, the boundary of which corresponds to the elliptic curve. And now, just two years later, an AI language model has provided two examples of elliptic curves of an even higher rank.

Today:
Japan just hit a new longevity milestone
NEWS | 21 September 2026
Japan is the first country to have more than 100,000 centenarians and has one of the longest life expectancies in the world. Humans are living longer and longer. Additionally, a long life can be “a potentially dangerous scenario unless it’s accompanied by good health,” Olshansky says. “What’s really critical about this is quality of life,” Olshansky adds. “Just living longer should not be the primary goal of medicine and public health anymore.

Top Stories:
How heat makes it harder for students to learn
NEWS | 21 September 2026
The lengthening heat wave season is subjecting more students to more extreme heat—and research shows that besides just missed days of class, it means they’re having a harder time learning. “In our review, the most important finding was about air conditioning,” Ekenga says. But as temperatures continue to rise and heat waves bleed into spring and fall, there have been efforts in some cities and towns to install air conditioning in schools without it. A 2025 report showed that one fifth of NYC classrooms still lacked air conditioning. Putting air conditioning into older school buildings isn’t cheap, which can make it more difficult for some cities and school districts to implement.

World:
T. rex was as warm-blooded as humans, new study finds
NEWS | 21 September 2026
T. rex long faced reptilian stereotypes, but in recent decades research has shown that the dinosaurs were likely warm-blooded. And now, for the first time, researchers say they have pinpointed an exact body temperature for T. rex. Using tiny remains of T. rex tooth enamel found in modern-day Montana, scientists measured isotopes within the sample to estimate the dinosaur’s temperature . They found that T. rex likely ran at around 36 degrees Celsius—similar to the internal body temperature of modern-day humans. For example, a 2022 study showed that dinosaurs likely had a range of metabolisms and estimated T. rexes that were on the lower end of endothermy.

Current Events:
What if ‘consciousness’ isn’t real?
NEWS | 21 September 2026
A key theme of this year’s gathering is the distribution of consciousness: When does consciousness first emerge in human development? And can we construct a consciousness detector, something that might tell us whether, say, babies, bees or bots are members of the “consciousness club”? In the 1990s philosopher Ned Block, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, introduced the term “phenomenal consciousness” to refer to this state. But despite its apparent universality, phenomenal consciousness has not always occupied center stage in how human beings have approached the mind. The English term “consciousness” may turn out to play that role.

News Flash:
Indonesia is moving its capital. Will a forest pay the price?
NEWS | 21 September 2026
Filmmaker and journalist Leah Varjacques takes listeners inside an Indonesian forest that’s quickly changing as the country attempts to move its capital cityRachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. The Indonesian government is building a new capital city here. The current capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, is perhaps the fastest-sinking city in the world. Wendy Erb: We heard that Indonesia was moving the capital to Kalimantan. I knew immediately building a new capital city there has the potential to have a huge impact on forest and animals there.