Plus, OpenAI ‘shepherds’ affirm its blockbuster physics result ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
November 11, 2026—An interview about AI with a recent Nobel laureate in chemistry, why scientists are alarmed by El Niño and a "shepherded" validation of OpenAI's blockbuster physics result.
—Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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The current El Niño is one of the strongest ever on record. Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S)
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El Niño likely will push this year's climate to more than 1.5 degrees C above average temperatures in preindustrial times. Will Earth surpass this climate threshold for good? | 5 min read
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Also: Could this be the strongest El Niño in 1,000 years? Hear Scientific American's Andrea Thompson explain why scientists are aghast at this year's version of the cyclical climate phenomenon. | 13 min listen
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Experts appointed by OpenAI have verified its recent blockbuster physics result. The AI-generated proof validates bedrock assumptions of the Standard Model of particle physics. | 3 min read
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Mountain heights are about to change, largely due to gravity and an overhaul of the national system that defines spatial references such as latitude, longitude and orientation. | 2 min read
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A newfound invisible object in space could be a rare supermassive neutron star. Solving the mystery of this hefty something that’s tugging on a red giant could reveal new astrophysics. | 3 min read
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The AI Revolution Is Coming
AI has not only sped up work in the lab of Omar Yaghi, a joint winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he tells Scientific American editor in chief Jeanna Bryner. AI also is transforming his field. “It’s a revolution,” he says. To aid in the survival of the U.S. research system, he states, scientists today should engage with AI, make its models more useful and use it to suggest questions that would normally go unasked.
How it works: Labs should be modernized and research processes should be reinvented to keep up with the speed of social change being driven by AI, Yaghi adds. Such labs will help recruit the best minds among young scholars. While aviation, trade and other fields in society are operating “at the speed of light” by getting information from LLMs and online resources, progress even in his own lab is proceeding very slowly.
What the experts say: “We forget that our best products are these new young scientists who think in a different way, who can solve problems in ways that nobody else can. The human element of this—human education and the human ability to solve problems and to discover new things that change the world—is not as emphasized as the actual product that might result,” Yaghi says.
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The Lion Nebula was first captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2000. The new images from JWST capture the planetary nebula's lionlike nose and mane in far greater detail. NASA
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Cosmic Predator
Astronomers have captured their clearest view yet of the planetary nebula NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula. The nebula’s moniker matches its appearance: the lion’s “nose” is a dying white dwarf star, its face is a gas bubble resulting from radiation emitted from the star, and its mane is a cloud of dust surrounding the white dwarf.
Why this is important: The new images, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, show the gas and dust surrounding the white dwarf more clearly than older photos derived from Hubble Space Telescope observations. The nebula’s structure is now visible as a set of complex rings and shells.
What the experts say: Researchers still don’t fully understand the structural features on display in these new images, but there’s lots of human-scale time to figure it out. The nebula won’t fully disperse all its gas and dust (thereby destroying the lion’s spectacular visage) for another 10,000 years.
—Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor
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SPONSORED CONTENT BY TRAVERE THERAPEUTICS
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Microscopic view of brown kidney blood vessels. eyeba/ Imazins/ Getty Images
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Rethinking Rare Kidney Disease Treatment
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What connects IgA nephropathy and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis? A closer look at shared pathways is changing how researchers think about rare kidney disease.
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New Stanford initiative aims to build digital twin of human brain. | The Transmitter
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There’s a completely new type of whisky. It’s French and made in concrete eggs. | Wired
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The school apps that are out of control. | The Atlantic
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In honor of all U.S. military veterans on this Veterans Day, we invite you to consider how vets’ brains might be changed by explosion exposures as well as a powerful psychedelic that shows promise for relieving symptoms of PTSD in combat veterans.
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Please send any comments, questions or science-informed reflections on Veterans Day to: newsletters@sciam.com.
—Robin Lloyd, Contributing Editor
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