Dogs have a paw preference. Here's how to determine your dog's dominant paw. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
June 10, 2026—The science behind the World Cup (there's lots). Plus, the sun and many companions migrated away from the Milky Way's core. And how to know if your dog is left- or right-pawed.
—Andrea Gawrylewski
Chief Newsletter Editor
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Jagoda Matejczuk/500px/Getty Images
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Like humans, dogs prefer the left or right hand—er, paw. Here's how to tell if your pup is left-pawed or right-pawed. | 4 min read
Chinese scientists have discovered the largest whale “graveyard” ever found. It contains nearly 500 whale skeletons all collected by chance and spreads across 750 miles of seafloor and five million years of evolutionary history. | 3 min read
The FDA added bemotrizinol, an effective chemical filter that’s been used in sunscreens made in Asia and Europe for decades, to its list of permitted active ingredients in over-the-counter sunscreens. It's the first new entry in more than 20 years. | 5 min read
The Canadian rock duo Angine de Poitrine uses neurobiology, physics and a custom guitar to make viral music. | 4 min read
Americans’ trust in the CDC has plummeted since 2025, a new poll finds. Only 12 percent say they trust the agency's recommendations “a great deal.” | 2 min read
Mathematicians devised a batch of “First Proof” problems to evaluate AI’s usefulness for research-level math. The best AI model only got six or seven of the 10 questions right. | 4 min read
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World Cup Science
The FIFA World Cup kicks off this week in North America. This wouldn’t be Today in Science without me saying that Science is Everywhere, including at major sporting events. So here’s some of the science behind the World Cup.
The ball: The soccer ball designed for this year’s World Cup is called the Trionda (Spanish for “triwave”). It’s named in honor of the three host nations—the U.S., Mexico and Canada—for the first multinational-hosted World Cup. The trionda ball is based on a tetrahedron, which at first seems the least ball-like of all the possible shapes. A tetrahedron is made of four triangles, three of which meet at every point. The trick in the Trionda design is in the shape of the panels. Though they have three points like a typical triangle, the panels’ edges are curves that fit together to give the ball a more rounded exterior. Learn more about the physics of this ball here.
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CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
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Perfect Pitch: FIFA is building temporary natural-grass fields meant to play consistently across 16 stadiums in three countries. But the grass engineers must account for a range of conditions, from open-air heat and rain to roofed venues with managed airflow. If the surface fails at any one of them, it could become part of the game, altering footing, bounce, how quickly the field recovers and, potentially, competitive fairness. Grasses are selected for the local conditions: Warmer venues are using Bermuda grass-based systems; cooler or lower-light ones use cool-season grasses, often with hybrid reinforced fibers. Crews are using grow-lights and monitoring the grass constantly, probing its moisture levels, aerating it for good oxygen flow, and mowing it meticulously. We sat down with an expert in turfgrass management to learn more about how the North American stadiums were outfitted with natural grass.
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Pink grow lights illuminate newly laid grass inside a roofed stadium in Arlington, Tex. After installing the temporary pitches, venue crews must keep them alive. Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images
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Disease tracking: An anticipated five million soccer fans from around the world will travel to 16 host cities across three countries and pack stadiums to cheer on their teams, making these events perfect breeding grounds for disease. Dozens of health organizations and research groups have formed an independent surveillance network to track the presence of dangerous pathogens in community wastewater including measles, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) and influenza, as well as concerning but less likely threats such as the pathogens that cause dengue fever and Ebola. Wastewater monitoring sites can sense levels of disease in a community by detecting pieces of viral or other pathogenic DNA shed through feces, urine or other bodily fluids into municipal wastewater systems. These data can sometimes reveal community spread of a pathogen days or even weeks before cases spike at hospitals and health care systems.
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Migrating Stars
Chemical analyses of the sun show that, given its age and chemical components, it would not have been able to form at its present location. It turns out our sun was born 4.6 billion years ago near the crowded center of the Milky Way and then migrated roughly 10,000 light-years outward. But it did not make this journey alone. Researchers examined satellite tracking data and solar wavelengths of stars and identified a massive group of more than 6,500 stars between six billion and four billion years old—including our sun—that migrated away from the galaxy’s inner region.
Why this is interesting: Observations of the Milky Way have revealed an enormous rotating barlike structure made of gas, dust and millions of stars that slices through our galaxy’s center. This bar creates a distinct gravitational phenomenon known as the corotation barrier, which prevents inner stars from traveling to the galactic outskirts. Computer simulations suggest only about 1 percent of stars born at the sun’s presumed origin site could successfully breach this barrier. And our sun did.
What the experts say: The corotation barrier did not stop the migration of the sun and its cohort, because the barrier was not fully formed when it happened, suggests Daisuke Taniguchi, an astronomer at Tokyo Metropolitan University. In fact, Taniguchi suggests, the growing galactic bar could have pushed the migration forward instead of restricting it.
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A SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN EVENT
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The Young American Scientists 2026
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Scientific American’s first-ever Young American Scientists issue takes an unflinching look at the threats facing science today and offers a hopeful look at what comes next. Join Scientific American editors David Ewalt, Megha Satyanarayana, Dan Vergano and Ari Sen for an engaging discussion on the state of American science and how they found the 28 promising young researchers whose work may one day change the world.
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For people with the neuropsychological disorder misophonia, the noise of everyday life can be brutal. | The New Yorker
Antoni Gaudí drew on a centuries-old arch design to build Barcelona's Sagrada Família, the tallest church in the world. | BBC
The largest raw-milk dairy farm in the country is making millions, even though the product makes people sick. | ProPublica
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Are you planning to watch any of the World Cup matches in the next couple weeks? Or even attend one in person? Climate scientists warned last month that many matches will likely be under conditions of extreme heat, so if you do venture out please take care. In my opinion, some sports are better watched from an air-conditioned bar.
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Reach out to me anytime with comments or feedback on this newsletter: newsletters@sciam.com. We'll be back tomorrow.
—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor
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