Social Sciences

Play this crossword inspired by the January 2025 issue of Scientific American

Science in meter and verse

The 2024 word-of-the-year winners offer a window into the spirit of the times

The oldest human genomes ever sequenced reveal that our Neandertal ancestry came from one “pulse” of interbreeding and pins down the timing

The way scientists recognize one another’s work overlooks the seminal contributions of Black scientists. The Nobel Committees need to recognize how this excludes Black scientists from awards

Many parents choose sleep training to get their babies to sleep through the night. But the evidence supporting it is flawed

Gen Z can’t stand inequality. Why so many of its men voted Republican is a lesson in understanding male identity

Two sets of fossilized footprints from early human species were made within a few hours of each other about 1.5 million years ago, researchers suggest

If we lose sight of why empathy matters, both individual dignity and democracy suffer

From “ouch” to “aïe” to “yakayi,” languages across the world exclaim pain using similar-sounding words, hinting at a common origin

A renowned psychiatrist and activist compares Trump’s election to other pivotal historical moments in which the ultimate victim was truth itself

A finger-sized clay cylinder from a tomb in northern Syria appears to be the oldest example of writing using an alphabet rather than hieroglyphs or cuneiform