Scientific American

SleepMay 1, 2026Americans are exhausted, a new CDC report showsNearly a third of all U.S. adults are sleeping fewer than the recommended seven hours per night on averageSAVE $80 ON AN UNLIMITED SUBSCRIPTION TODAY!May 2026 IssueSpecial EditionPodcastsPopular StoriesParticle PhysicsApril 30, 2026What’s faster than light? DarknessA recent experiment revealed that individual dark points on a light wave can move faster than the wave itselfAdam KovacAnimalsApril 30, 2026A major humpback whale rescue effort is attempting to do something extraordinaryRescuers had called off the effort to save “Timmy,” a humpback whale that had stranded in the Baltic Sea last month. But now a last-ditch attempt to move the creature by barge is underwayK. R. CallawayThe UniverseMay 1, 2026What is the Kardashev scale, and can we climb it?The Kardashev scale is an interesting but flawed gauge of a civilization’s growthPhil PlaitGeneticsApril 30, 2026Human genome decoder J. Craig Venter dies at age 79Scientist and medical technology entrepreneur J. Craig Venter published the first bacterial genome ever decoded in 1995. The result heralded a new age of discovery for geneticsClaire CameronAnimalsApril 28, 2026City birds appear to be more afraid of women than men, and scientists have no idea why“I fully believe our results, that urban birds