See videos of the sparring matches ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
December 15, 2025—The rate of kids without health insurance is climbing. Plus, jousting battles of the bird world, and where are the humanoid robots? —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | - A male green hermit hummingbirds uses its bill—which is straighter and sharper than females'—to joust in sparring matches with other males that can sometimes end in death. | 2 min read
- Women who get a COVID vaccine during pregnancy are 60 percent less likely to experience severe disease and around 30 percent less likely to give birth prematurely, according to new research. | 1 min read
- Why aren't there human-like robots walking around in the world yet? | 4 min read
- CDC officials (and Trump himself) have said the U.S. needs to align its vaccination policy with Denmark's. But the U.S. is nothing like Denmark in many ways, and this approach makes no sense, experts say. | 4 min read
| | The rate of children in the U.S. without health insurance is continuing to climb and reached 6.1 percent last year, meaning more than four million kids under age 19 lack coverage. It's the highest rate in the past decade. Plus, it's more than a 20 percent increase from 2022. | | Eve Lu; Source: The U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (data) | | How this happened: The U.S. has a patchwork of public, private and other employer-provided insurance plans, reports Eve Lu. This creates a shaky environment for families whose income or job status changes. Many children go without coverage because of bureaucracies in the system, say experts. Because of a process informally called "Medicaid unwinding," states have once again started checking for Medicaid eligibility after a period of continuous coverage during the COVID pandemic. Some people who were eligible previously were unenrolled because of bureaucratic mistakes.
Why this matters: Kids without health insurance have an increased chance of dying from illnesses like cancer. A study of more than 58,000 kids and teenagers under 20 in 2020 found that young people without health insurance had a much higher risk of dying within five years than those with private insurance across most cancer types.
What can be done: Many uninsured children are eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program but either aren't enrolled or their parents don't realize they qualify, says Joan Alker, a research professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. The Trump administration is phasing out a policy that has allowed some states to cover children continuously until age six despite any family changes in circumstances. | | | | |
Limited Space Available for 2026 Mediterranean Eclipse Cruise Join us! We secured additional cabins for our 2026 solar eclipse cruise. Reserve yours now for the experience of a lifetime: watching totality approach while surrounded by the sea, fellow science lovers and your trip leader, Senior Editor Clara Moskowitz. | | | | |
By now I hope you've checked out our top 10 nonfiction and fiction books of the year, curated by our editors. Scientific American sat down with some of the authors of our favorite 2025 reads to get a behind-the-scenes take on the meaning and motivations of these books. | | - This is the man at the heart of America's anti-offshore wind movement. | Canary Media
- The decades-long relationship between science and the U.S. government has been severely rattled. An investigative look at the fallout. | STAT News
- Astrophysicist Adam Frank argues that the fundamental nature of living things contradicts long-held beliefs in physics. | The Atlantic
| | In my conversation with nature writer Robert Macfarlane about his latest book, Is a River Alive?, he says, "We rarely care for what we do not love, and we rarely love what we cannot see, touch or feel." I had asked him whether people must be immersed in nature, or have a personal connection to it, in order to recognize its inherent value. I've been thinking about his response in the days since. I do agree that first-hand experience is an excellent gateway to environmental stewardship. And yet I will readily state that I do not love snakes and want nothing to do with them. But I still want them to exist and recognize the crucial role they play in various complex ecosystems. To truly see nature as deserving of existence and protection (and restoration), perhaps we need to move beyond our own human perspectives. | | Let me know what you think, I love hearing from you. No snake stories, please, if you can help it: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
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