A new study published earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters reveals how the tips of tree leaves burn with ghostly, ultraviolet sparks. These phenomena, known as coronas, had never been seen in nature—until now. 🌿 spklr.io/6042DI2EC 📸: William Brune

The snow we just got on the East Coast is particularly great snow for snowballs. This is because of the snow-to-liquid ratio. ❄️ spklr.io/6043Da4yB 🎤 🎞️: Marta Hill 📝: Stephanie Pappas

Thunderstorms can generate weak electrical discharges on the plants underneath, but until now, they had never been observed in nature

One of the U.S.’s most decorated downhill skiers, Lindsey Vonn, revealed she almost had to have her leg amputated because of a life-threatening condition.

Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn revealed she had compartment syndrome. Here's what that means

The distinctive sound horses produce when they whinny is created by combining low and high pitch sounds together, like grunting and whistling at the same time

Since ancient Greece, researchers have tried to isolate special rational points on curves. Now they have the first ever formula that applies uniformly to all curves

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) NIRSpec instrument captured nearly a full day on Uranus during a 15-hour period in late January 2025. spklr.io/6049DIVDL 📸: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Caribou are the only deer species where the females grow antlers. There are few theories as to why, but now evidence shows they eat them as a postbirthing supplement 🧪 Fascinating piece by @emmalgometz.bsky.social for @sciam.bsky.social

A recent study found an unexpected benefit of female caribou antlers: they can function like a vitamin for deer that have just given birth

Fresh observations from the James Webb Space Telescope show how vivid auroras surge through Uranus’s tilted magnetic field

Blizzards are a real-life example of what game theorists call the “snowdrift problem,” a cousin of the prisoner’s dilemma that offers clues into why we choose to cooperate

Here's the science of why today's snow in the Northeast is the best snow for all your snowball- and snowman-making needs

Experts at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have rediscovered a recording and determined it’s probably the oldest whale recording still in existence. The likely vocalist? A humpback whale. 🐋 spklr.io/6007Dxy1Z 📷: BlackBox 🎙️: Luis Lamar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Thousands of markings on objects made around 40,000 years ago may have been more than just doodles, a new analysis suggests

Everywhere JWST looked, the telescope found at least one specimen of what are now commonly called Little Red Dots. The dots were everywhere, until they were nowhere; about 1.5 billion years after the big bang, they mostly disappear. Take a deep dive into this mystery

Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, and his colleagues arrived in 2019 to a site which turned out to be a treasure trove of fossils, including those from Spinosaurus mirabilis. spklr.io/6047DUnld 📸: Keith Ladzinski. The University of Chicago.

Not every snowstorm is a blizzard--here's what it takes to earn the term

Researchers have rediscovered a 77-year-old recording of a haunting song that now has been determined to have come from a humpback whale

School is out as heavy, wet snow blankets parts of the Northeast. Though it will be a pain to shovel, it makes for perfect snowballs and the most structurally sound snowmen

Flakes’ final shape depends on an array of temperature, humidity and wind speed variables

Physicists set out to observe the Terrell-Penrose effect, which would make objects moving at nearly the speed of light look oddly rotated. Here's how they did it

Every snowflake is different, but new technology reveals they all swirl the same

Snow’s appeal is more than just a fond nostalgia for childhood days away from school

NASA will roll its massive Artemis II rocket off the launch pad as early as tomorrow due to a helium issue. Why is it so hard to go back to the moon? Dig deep with this recent feature on the Artemis program

Blizzards can bring a ton of snow, but here’s what else they feature

Sasha Stiles turned GPT-2 experiments into a self-writing poem at a Museum of Modern Art installation—and a new way to think about text-generating AI optimization

Today on the pod, a surprising FDA reversal on Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine, early promise from a universal inhaled vaccine, and a desert fossil find that is reshaping spinosaurid history.

We're sad to say goodbye to the Olympics today, but we loved covering it. What was your favorite moment from the games?

Federal freezes to foreign assistance are affecting grants for investigative reporters everywhere—but especially in poorer countries

A satellite captured a recent “ring of fire” eclipse from a stunning new angle

Why have the medals at the Olympics kept breaking? My colleague Eric Sullivan dug into the science for @sciam.bsky.social 🧪

A small design flaw in the medals for the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina turned a durability promise into a very public stress test

Just a day after NASA set a March 6 target date for its upcoming moon mission, the agency’s head announced it will roll back the rocket from the pad entirely

Isomorphic Lab’s proprietary drug-discovery model is a major advance, but scientists developing open-source tools are left guessing how to achieve similar results

As Anthropic releases its most autonomous agents yet, a mounting clash with the military reveals the impossible choice between global scaling and a “safety first” ethos

The FDA is reportedly considering broadening the types of drugs that can be sold without a prescription, a move some pharmacy experts say could raise safety risks

On Tuesday parts of the Southern Hemisphere were graced by a “ring of fire” solar eclipse—a celestial marvel that occurs when the moon is at or near its farthest distance from Earth and passes directly between our planet and the sun. spklr.io/6008DSp8q 📸: ESA/Royal Observatory of Belgium

When a patient shared the story of her sister’s death, an AI captured the clinical details—freeing physician Christopher Sharp to just be present

On Science Quickly, we chatted with Daniel Bonn, a professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, about why understanding the physics behind the slipperiness of ice matters. Listen to the podcast on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on our site. spklr.io/6002DSMiE 🎤: Daniel Bonn

Why is ice slippery? This question has been stumping scientists for hundreds of years. 🧊 Tune in to the full episode of Science Quickly to hear more about the leading theories as to what actually makes ice slippery. spklr.io/6002DSMiE 🎤: Kendra Pierre-Louis, Paulina Rowińska 🎞️: Marta Hill

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: What’s behind Trump’s order to declassify U.S. government documents about aliens and UFOs? How are scientists actually searching for ET? What happens next? Here’s what some real experts have to say. www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...

Footage of a southern sleeper shark was captured in January 2025 by a baited deep-sea camera in a trench at about 490 meters beneath the sea surface off the South Shetland Islands.🦈 spklr.io/6003DUXG3 📷: Inkfish/UWA/Kelpie Geoscience 🎵: Current Clouds

The Trump administration on Friday officially rolled back a series of Biden-era environmental regulations on coal plants, including some intended to clamp down on mercury pollution.

Transdisciplinary artist Stephanie Dinkins challenges us to rethink what we feed our machines—and asks what AI might become if it were trained on care

NASA has confirmed it's targeting March 6 for the launch of Artemis II

By completing a second “wet dress rehearsal” of its upcoming moon mission, NASA may be on track for a March launch date

A Microsoft Research study suggests glass blocks etched with lasers could provide enduring data archives

All eyes are on curling in this year’s Winter Olympics. But did you know that all curling stones are sourced from only two places in the world? A mineralogist set out to find out why, and what happens when one of those sources can no longer be mined. spklr.io/6003DqxoD

Researchers have rediscovered a 77-year-old recording of a haunting song that now has been determined to have come from a humpback whale