New Yorker ScienceIs the Rat War Over?In New York, a rat czar and new methods have brought down complaints. We may even be ready to appreciate the creatures.Feb 12, 2026
New Yorker ScienceWhy Don’t We Take Nuclear Weapons Seriously?The risk of nuclear war has only grown, yet the public and government officials are increasingly cavalier. Some experts are trying to change that.Sep 02, 2025
New Yorker ScienceWhat We Eat May Never Look the SameR.F.K., Jr., and the MAHA movement are at war with synthetic food dyes. Scientists are racing to reinvent the culinary color wheel.Aug 08, 2025
New Yorker ScienceCalculating the Damage of Vaccine SkepticismIt’s clear that we’re on the precipice of a surge in preventable diseases. But how bad will it get?Jun 27, 2025
New Yorker ScienceHow the Tiger Really Got His StripesPeople have wondered forever what determines the patterns that animals wear. We’re starting to figure it out.Feb 05, 2025
New Yorker ScienceThe Elephantine Memories of Food-Caching BirdsSome animals can remember where they’ve buried hundreds of thousands of seeds. Why can’t we remember where we’ve put our eyeglasses?Dec 29, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThe Quest to Build a Telescope on the MoonIf the FarView radio telescope is built, it would double as a demonstration of two unprecedented activities: mining and manufacturing in space.Sep 24, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThe Veterinarians Preventing the Next PandemicMost new diseases have their origins in animals. So why aren’t we paying more attention to their health?Aug 14, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThe Peculiar Delights of the Enormous Cicada EmergenceAs loud as leaf blowers, as miraculous as math, the insects are set to overtake the landscape.May 07, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThe Highest Tree House in the AmazonIn 2023, conservationists and carpenters converged on Peru to build luxury accommodations in the rain-forest canopy.Apr 17, 2024
New Yorker ScienceA Guide to the Total Solar EclipseEclipses dazzled the ancient world. Now that we understand them better, they may be even more miraculous.Apr 05, 2024
New Yorker ScienceBlack Holes Are Even Weirder Than You ImaginedIt’s now thought that they could illuminate fundamental questions in physics, settle questions about Einstein’s theories, and even help explain the universe.Mar 30, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThe Magic of Bird BrainsCrows are smart enough to pick up trash. Why won’t they?Mar 05, 2024
New Yorker ScienceA New Era of Moon Exploration Is Upon UsThe wildly ambitious Artemis program aims to get us back to the moon for good.Mar 04, 2024
New Yorker ScienceThinking About A.I. with Stanisław LemThe science-fiction writer didn’t live to see ChatGPT, but he foresaw so much of its promise and peril.Feb 27, 2024
New Yorker ScienceWill Plants Ever Fertilize Themselves?Biologists aim to engineer crops that can eat nitrogen straight from the air.Feb 06, 2024
New Yorker ScienceWhere Will Virtual Reality Take Us?Apple’s Vision Pro headset suggests one possible future—but there are others.Feb 02, 2024
New Yorker ScienceWhat We Lost When Twitter Became XAs a former Twitter employee, I watched Elon Musk undermine one of the Internet’s most paradoxical, special places.Jan 05, 2024
New Yorker ScienceIt’s Time to Dismantle the TechnopolyAs technology accelerates, we need to stop accepting the bad consequences along with the good ones.Dec 18, 2023
New Yorker ScienceInside the Illegal Cactus TradeAs the craze for succulents continues, sometimes the smuggler and the conservationist are the same person.Dec 07, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Mystery of Florida’s FlamingosAfter Hurricane Idalia, Floridians reported more sightings of flamingos than they did in the entire twentieth century.Oct 26, 2023
New Yorker ScienceHow NASA Brought an Asteroid to EarthBy sampling some of the oldest rock in the solar system, the OSIRIS-REx mission could revise the story of the origins of life.Sep 28, 2023
New Yorker ScienceLooking for Art in the James Webb TelescopeArtists are finding inspiration in the newest images of old and ancient stars.Sep 14, 2023
New Yorker ScienceLife and Death in America’s Hottest CityCarolyn Kormann on how climate change threatens to increase the high incidence of heat-related deaths in and near Phoenix, Arizona.Sep 06, 2023
New Yorker ScienceWhat Insects Go Through Is Even Weirder Than We ThoughtA scientist suggests that the startling science of metamorphosis has a new dimension.Aug 31, 2023
New Yorker ScienceWhat Are Dreams For?Converging lines of research suggest that we might be misunderstanding something we do every night of our lives.Aug 31, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Race to Save the World’s DNAA scientific rescue mission aims to analyze every plant, animal, and fungus before it’s too late.Aug 09, 2023
New Yorker ScienceWhy It’s So Hard to Forecast Wildfire SmokeThe best available science allows for little more than a day of prediction, making the arrival of smoky skies feel sudden and unexpected.Aug 08, 2023
New Yorker ScienceA New Generation of Robots Seems Increasingly HumanEngineers are putting chatbots into mechanical bodies, with entrancing and unsettling results.Jul 26, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Magnificence of the Bluefin TunaKaren Pinchin’s “Kings of Their Own Ocean” gives us a new look at the beauty and the importance of an ancient fish.Jul 24, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Paradox of Listening to Our BodiesInteroception—the inner sense linking our bodies and minds—can confuse as much as it can reveal.Jul 06, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Quest to Save Chili Peppers from Climate ChangeA seed bank in Taiwan is home to more chili varieties than anywhere else on earth. In a warming world, we’re going to need them.Jun 16, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Astounding Birth of a Gorilla at the Smithsonian ZooBreeding in zoos fuses science and nature in striking ways.Jun 08, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Strange Story of a Cat LockdownFeline residents of Walldorf, Germany, can’t go outside when certain birds are breeding. Is it cruelty or conservation?Jun 02, 2023
New Yorker ScienceCongress Really Wants to Regulate A.I., but No One Seems to Know HowYet another hearing—this one with OpenAI’s Sam Altman—has come after a new technology with the possibility to fundamentally alter our lives is already in circulation.May 20, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Myth of the Alpha WolfThe model of aggression and dominance has infected human society. But new research shows how wrong we got it.Mar 25, 2023
New Yorker ScienceWhispers of A.I.’s Modular FutureChatGPT is in the spotlight, but it’s Whisper—OpenAI’s open-source speech-transcription program—that shows us where machine learning is going.Feb 01, 2023
New Yorker ScienceThe Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard TinkerersOn the right machine, typing can be like playing a Steinway grand. Is tactile perfection possible?Aug 26, 2022
New Yorker ScienceDoes Wordle Prove That We Can Have Nice Things on the Internet?Josh Wardle created the viral game as part of his ongoing quest to design online spaces that don’t devolve into spam and swastikas.Mar 07, 2022
New Yorker ScienceA New Story for StonehengeUsing innovative techniques, researchers are learning more about the monument’s origins and history.Feb 16, 2022
New Yorker ScienceDiscovering the Oldest Figural Paintings on EarthWhile working as an independent archeologist, an Indonesian grad student revised the human story.Nov 13, 2021
New Yorker ScienceThe Mysterious Case of the COVID-19 Lab-Leak TheoryDid the virus spring from nature or from human error?Oct 12, 2021
New Yorker ScienceIn an Increasingly Noisy Arctic, Will Narwhals Fall Silent?The marine mammals have been observed to stop vocalizing, hunting, and feeding after hearing underwater blasts.Aug 31, 2021
New Yorker ScienceWill We Ever Fly Supersonically Over Land?By turning sonic booms into sonic thumps, engineers hope to domesticate faster-than-sound transport.Jun 26, 2021
New Yorker ScienceMy Father’s TheoremSometimes, a mathematical proof is more than just a fact.Jun 20, 2021
New Yorker ScienceE-mail Is Making Us MiserableIn an attempt to work more effectively, we’ve accidentally deployed an inhumane way to collaborate.Feb 26, 2021
New Yorker ScienceThe Activists Who Embrace Nuclear PowerIn the face of climate change, some environmentalists are fighting not to close power plants but to save them.Feb 19, 2021
New Yorker ScienceWhy You Can’t Just Vote on Your Phone During the PandemicFor computer scientists who study election software, online-voting programs are a security nightmare, vulnerable to malware and manipulation.Jun 19, 2020
New Yorker ScienceIn the Future, We’ll All Wear Spider SilkNicola Twilley reports on Bolt Threads, a company that uses genetically engineered yeast to make spider-silk clothing, and on the wider biosilk scene.Mar 12, 2017
