Stories by Allison Parshall

After decades of work, physicists have finally broken into the atom to build the first nuclear clock

U.S. Senators and Representatives whose family had a history of enslaving others have greater present-day wealth

Polymetallic blobs are producing “dark oxygen” from the depths of the ocean—and no one knows exactly how.

Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories

Dosing errors in the medication semaglutide, prescribed as Wegovy and Ozempic, can cause severe or prolonged gastrointestinal issues that require medical attention

Pilot programs across the U.S., including new research funded by OpenAI, offer a glimpse of how a universal basic income could improve lives

Baffling new results show that rocklike mineral deposits in the deep sea can produce oxygen

The Seine will be the stage for the Paris 2024 Olympics’ Opening Ceremony—and for its marathon swimming events. But this urban waterway is challenging to keep clean.

Ozempic, Wegovy and other GLP-1 drugs are being investigated as treatments for many health conditions—from dementia to addiction to kidney problems

How to finally wrap your mind around the uniquely counterintuitive Monty Hall dilemma

A preliminary study suggests that sex and gender are represented differently in the brain

Claims that Przewalski’s horses were discovered in the U.S. are unverified. But the conservation story behind the last truly wild horse is worth your time.

Przewalski’s horses, once extinct in the wild, are revitalizing Kazakhstan’s “Golden Steppe”

Writers, artists, photographers and researchers share the stories behind the stories

From microbes to mammoths, life has transformed Earth into one big living system, says Ferris Jabr, author of Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life

Nature still outdoes the machine, says a photographer whose real image won an AI photography competition

A nuclear explosion in space would cause stunning auroras—and wreak havoc on satellites and space stations.

Russia may be planning to put a nuclear weapon in orbit. We have known since the 1960s why that is a bad idea

Google is bringing AI answers to a billion people this year, but generative AI requires much more energy than traditional keyword searches

Why are bears both adorable and deadly? Scientific American investigates why these apex predators are “friend-shaped”

For the first time, scientists observed matter’s free fall into a black hole’s “plunging region”

Evidence shows microplastics can end up in many different organs and may harm reproductive health

Across the globe, singing traditions are vast and varied. Their commonalities may help explain how music evolved

New research into weed reveals how a lemon-scented terpene can ease anxiety without reducing the high.