We're picking our favorite stories of the year ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
December 29, 2025—Most of us are off this week enjoying a holiday break, but I wanted to check in and send along some of our favorite articles of the year. First up, the biggest discoveries in neuroscience and math, plus we picked the best pics from space in 2025. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | 10 THINGS WE LEARNED ABOUT THE BRAIN IN 2025 | | THE TOP 10 MATH DISCOVERIES OF 2025 | | Dudeney's Dissection Transforming an Equilateral Triangle to a Square," by Mark D. Meyerson (reference) | | THE BEST SPACE IMAGES FROM 2025 | | | | |
| • Astronomers entered a mind-blowing new era this year with the first light of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. At an event in June, scientists revealed the product of just 10 hours of observations—images that seem to zoom forever, a treasure trove of galaxies and colorful clouds of gas and dust splashed across the sky. (Image credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory) | | | • This stunning image comes from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and shows delicately nested spirals of material thrown out over some 700 years by a celestial system called Apep. Apep includes two so-called Wolf-Rayet stars, which are bright, massive stars that eject huge amounts of material for a few million years before they collapse into either a black hole or a neutron star. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (image); Yinuo Han/California Institute of Technology/Ryan White/Macquarie University (science); Alyssa Pagan/STScI (image processing)) | | | • The sun is officially out of its period of maximum solar activity, but that doesn't mean it's quiet. In November a flurry of solar outbursts stunned sky watchers as far south as Mexico and Florida with jaw-dropping auroras. (Image credit: Ross Harried/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Click here to see more great space images | | | | Scientific American has been reviewing and recommending books for more than 100 years. Since we're at year's-end, our editors and staffers have picked out their favorite reads from 2025, and this year we narrowed down our top 10 favorite fiction and nonfiction titles released since January. Add some of these to your 2026 reading lists.
| | I'll be back tomorrow with another round up of our favorite articles of the year. Tell me what you loved reading about in 2025: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! | | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
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