Does technological advancement need a place to go? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
November 24, 2025—Progress toward the 2015 Paris climate accord's goals, brain-decoding devices and the catastrophe driving a decision to move a capital. —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor | | - AI-enhancements could enable improved neurotechnology such as brain-computer interfaces and wearables for people with paralyzed limbs. Ethicists are raising autonomy concerns. | 10 min read
- Iran plans to move its capital, possibly to the country's southern coast, because Tehran has run out of groundwater. Overuse has destroyed the city's aquifers. | 2 min read
- Personalized mRNA vaccines, tailored to target a patient's unique tumor mutations, could revolutionize cancer treatment. Funding cuts could doom the therapies. | 19 min read
- China is set to launch a Shenzhou-22 spacecraft tomorrow to rescue three stranded astronauts. | 2 min read
- The pill version of a blockbuster GLP-1 weight-loss medication, semaglutide, failed to slow Alzheimer's progression in an initial analysis of two clinical phase 3 trials. | 2 min read
| | | Vital Climate Accord Turns 10 | Five new charts by Scientific American graphics editor Amanda Montañez illustrate paradoxes as the world progresses toward goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, an ambitious global accord to mitigate climate change. It is both true that nations have made meaningful strides in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming and that huge leaps still are needed to avoid the worst outcomes, reports Scientific American news reporter Meghan Bartels. Participants currently attending this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil are noting recent surges in renewable energy developments as well as advances in battery technology for storing power for nighttime use. Similar progress is needed in the transportation, agriculture and land use industries. How it works: Outcomes of the Paris Agreement, if nations continue to follow through, are estimated by 2100 to reduce the annual number of extremely hot days in the U.S. from 118 to 88, or even as low as 58 if we can limit warming to just 1.3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. What the experts say: Despite many unmet global goals in the past decade, even incremental progress toward " net zero"—when the quantity of tons of emissions removed from the atmosphere cancels the quantity of tons emitted—is crucial. "Every ton matters; every tenth of a degree we avoid matters; every year matters," says Costa Samaras, an energy policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University. | | Amanda Montañez; Source: "Ten Years of the Paris Agreement: The Present and Future of Extreme Heat," Climate Central and World Weather Attribution (data) | | | | |
- Europe's cookie nightmare is crumbling. | The Verge
- This pig's bacon was delicious. But she's alive and well. | Grist
- Why is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. so convinced he's right? | The Atlantic
| | - Below is a five-by-five chess board with the central square poked out. Place a knight, bishop, rook or queen in the upper-left corner and find a path that ends at the bottom-right corner that visits every square on the board along the way without repeating. With which piece or pieces is this possible? If a bishop, rook or queen glide across squares on the way to a stop, those intervening squares count as visited. Pieces cannot land on or glide over the hole. The knight hops, so only squares it lands on count as visited, and it can also hop over the hole. Click here for full rules and solution.
| | Iran's plan to move its capital is not a first for that country. "Over the centuries, it has shifted many times, from Tabriz to Isfahan to Shiraz," reports Scientific American news intern Humberto Basilio. Similarly, in our country's relatively short history, the U.S. capital has shifted between New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and other temporary locations. For a captivating portrayal of the early history of the U.S., I highly recommend "The American Revolution," a series by Ken Burns and his colleagues, now streaming on PBS. Unless you're a history scholar, you'll find it full of voices, context and details you likely never encountered in school. | | —Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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