2022 has been difficult, but in the field of space exploration, also truly inspiring.

As a difficult year on Earth ends, milestones in space exploration offer much for the whole world to celebrate. From the James Webb Space Telescope to the successful Double Asteroid Redirection Test, Scientific American's Editors list several reasons to feel cheerful.

Scientific American covers the advances in research and discovery that are changing our understanding of the world and shaping our lives.

Scientific American

Keep looking up

From boots to uniform standards.

As players take the pitch for the men's World Cup, new research has shown that science supports their safety and equipment more than it does women's. Tanya Lewis reveals that even top-tier female players are at risk of injury and performance issues as a result.

Sexist science in soccer harms women in an epic own goal

The world has once again been caught off-guard.

Multiple articles identifying dangerous underestimates about how fast Arctic ice is melting have been published since 2013, yet scientists continue to make the same mistakes. So from fears of hysteria to incorrect observations, Naomi Oreskes examines how they could have got it so wrong.

Why scientists got the fast pace of Arctic warming wrong

There's a profound mystery at the heart of reality.

Did you know that contrary to our everyday experiences, the universe is influenced by factors beyond our current scientific understanding? Daniel Garisto discovers how three quantum physicists used entangled photon experiments to overthrow reality as we know it.

The universe is not locally real, and the physics Nobel Prize winners proved it. 

The manipulation tactic also feeds off social vulnerabilities and stereotypes.

Gaslighting isn’t just between people in a relationship. It involves social power, too. Paige L. Sweet reflects on research that identifies four types of gaslighting and highlights the psychological suffering it causes.

How gaslighting manipulates reality

Old problems still plague DeepMind's hyped new system. 

Machines may someday be as intelligent as people, perhaps even smarter, but that day is still far in the future. Gary Marcus explains that despite our progress in the field of AI, we're still decades away from machines having human-level comprehension.

Artificial general intelligence is not as imminent as you might think

This unique aspect of human emergence is like a sudden invasion of Earth.

When looking at other inhabitants of the planet Earth, humans are strange. What is even more bizarre is how ‘we generate, exploit and propagate information that is not encoded in our heritable genetic material yet travels with us through time and space.’ Caleb Scharf, the director of the Columbia Astrobiology Center, reflects on how the propagation of information known as the “dataome” has been an integral part of the hominin species since 200,000. Here, he reflects on why this is like an alien invasion or an asteroid impact.

We are the aliens

They lived in the shadows of the dinosaurs for millions of years. 

Textbooks often tell the most straightforward tale about the Age of the Dinosaurs, which ended in fire and fury after an asteroid's devastation. But the truth is considerably more complicated than that. Steve Brusatte explains some of palaeontology's most significant discoveries as the mystery unfolds about the mammals that endured extinction and persevered to form the thousands of species that thrive today.

How mammals conquered the world after the asteroid apocalypse

There’s a new meaning of inside out. 

The belief that brain is a blank slate onto which experience is flawed as it requires assumptions about the way we perceive and process events that are unjustifiable but recent progress in neuroscience suggests something far more fascinating. György Buzsáki explores how neural activity probes your physical surroundings to select just the information needed to survive and flourish.


How the brain 'constructs' the outside world

Despite their reputation, not all body invaders are harmful.

Parasites are essential for maintaining delicate ecosystems. They live in an intimate, usually long-lasting but costly relationship with their hosts, and it's estimated that 40-50 percent of all animal species fall into this group. Unfortunately, only the harmful species to humans appear to be on our radar. Rachel Nuwer explains the phenomenon of parasitic puppet mastery and why a small, growing cadre is beginning to think seriously about the need for targeted parasite conservation before it's too late.

The scientists fighting for parasite conservation

Surprisingly, it's not what you may think.

Humans are often captivated by the melodies of birdsong; however, the birds themselves seem to pay more attention to fine acoustic details that our ears are not attuned to. Adam Fishbein, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego, enlightens us on some of the many curiosities behind birdsong.

What birds really listen for in birdsong

Despite some unexpected challenges, team members are setting lofty goals for the rover in 2022
	
One year from touchdown, the Perseverance Rover has been exploring the alien landscape it accidentally touched down on and has discovered that its history is much more interesting than its team had imagined. Now the rover is heading towards its initial touchdown area, its team on the ground are getting ready for the toughest task yet, getting the rover’s rocks back to earth. Nadia Drake explores.

What we learned from the Perseverance Rover's first year on Mars

Physicists still argue about how to interpret the experiment.

A century ago, Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach made one of the most iconic observations in the history of physics: the discovery that electron spin can only take one of two values. Davide Castelvecchi explores how the groundbreaking basic concept of quantum spin provides an understanding of a vast range of physical phenomena.

100 years ago, a quantum experiment explained why we don't fall through our chairs

His surprising aide? Preindustrial Spanish countryside.

In the late 19th century, most scientists believed that the brain was composed of a continuous tangle of fires like a twisting labyrinth until Santiago Ramón y Cajal changed the study of neuroscience as we know it. Benjamin Ehrlich, the author of "The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal", looks back at his extraordinary life and how his childhood in Spain helped him decipher the images on his slides. 

The father of modern neuroscience discovered the basic unit of the nervous system

Our sense of identity could have been revealed.

The region known as the ventral medial prefrontal cortex is likely to create the fundamental model of ourselves. Robert Martone, a research scientist with expertise in neurodegeneration, explores how this region is crucial for our ability to form and maintain a consistent identity both now and when thinking about the future self.

How our brain preserves our sense of self

Humans evolved to be interdependent, not self-sufficient.

It's been long recognised that our ability to rely on others has been key to our success as a species. In fact, our instinctual preference for sociality, cooperation and communal care are traits that separate us from our closest living relatives like chimpanzees. 

However, when COVID-19 hit and all but compelled us to abandon our basic instincts, it highlighted the vulnerability of the United States' current aid systems. Robin G. Nelson argues that rampant individualism, nearly inaccessible healthcare and high levels of inequality are all factors that contributed to the US having a higher death toll than anywhere else.

How a virus exposed the myth of rugged individualism

Why is neuroscience so fascinating?

Few of us care or even understand the technical details of how molecules and electrical charges in the brain connect to give us cognition. However, as numerous experiments demonstrated, we struggle to resist the seductive allure of neuroscience. Iris Berent discusses the latest research as she examines the very human tendency to separate the mind from the body that not only kindles our irrational love affair with the brain but promotes bias impacting scientific literacy across multiple sectors.

People love the brain for the wrong reasons

Belief in conspiracy theories and overconfidence are two tendencies linked to hasty thinking.

Research shows that many people do hardly any research regarding big decisions in life. It has also been proven that these judgements are "part of larger error-prone patterns in behaviour and thinking." These patterns have consequences: people who tend to make such jumps in their reasoning often make decisions that don't pay off.  

Reflecting on their research, Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning explore what is behind this jumping and what can be done to help people think more deliberately.

People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

Galactic pile-ups, ambitious goals and new insights.

A new technology that helps to study the collisions, or mergers of other galaxies, could help our own, and in turn, could help us on our way to a deeper understanding of the entire universe. In this fascinating exploration of the world of colliding galaxies across cosmic time, Aaron S. Evans and Lee Armus, contemplate the history and future of existence through the lens of this mind-blowing field of research.        

Galaxy collisions preview milky way's fate

Can we find a sweet spot and lead a life well lived?

Most positive psychology suggests that happiness and meaning are strongly correlated with each other, and often feed off each other. But, Scott Barry Kaufman, reveals that there can be substantial trade-offs between seeking happiness and seeking meaning in life.