ScientistPankaj: Physicists close in on matter's biggest mystery

August 14, 2026—Physicists are closer to understanding the origins of matter, and estrogen-only hormone therapy may protect against dementia. Oh, and remember Flaco the owl? Emma Gometz catches a new documentary about his story and comes away intrigued (and sobbing). All that and more below.

—Andrea Gawrylewski,

Chief Newsletter Editor

TODAY'S NEWS

Conceptual illustration of two bubble-like star-filled universes colliding, with a brilliant flash of blue emanating from the collision point.

Victor De Schwanberg/Science Photo Library/Getty Images

Physicists have nailed down an elusive quantity called baryon number, which may explain why matter exists at all. | 3 min read
Forecasters expect Tropical Storm Lala, a cyclone heading for the Big Island of Hawaii, to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane early Saturday morning. Only two previous hurricanes on record have made landfall on Hawaii. | 2 min read
Illinois is having a record-breaking year for tornadoes: more than 200 twisters this year, which could beat Texas’s all-time record of 244 tornadoes in 12 months. Here's why this is happening. | 2 min read
Someday perhaps in the next 100,000 years, Betelgeuse will go supernova in one of the most titanic explosions possible in the universe. What will happen? | 5 min read
Estrogen-only hormone therapy for menopause could lower the risk for Alzheimer's, according to a new retrospective study. | 2 min read
A mathematician may have solved a 250-year-old question about whether every polygon contains a path home. | 3 min read
Record-breaking rainfall (14.4 inches!) in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo has killed at least eight people and sparked widespread power outages and travel disruptions. | 2 min read

TOP STORIES

Flaco the owl looks into the camera. In the background is the glowing insignia of the NYPD.

A still image of Flaco from Wild Inside. Courtesy of Sandbox Films; Benny Polatseck (photographer)

Owls Gone Wild

Flaco, the charismatic Eurasian Eagle-Owl who in February 2023 escaped his enclosure in Central Park Zoo and for a little over a year was the resident célèbre of Central Park, hasn’t been in the news for a while. But at the end of last month, his story, a documentary called Wild Inside, came to the big screen. I went to see it in a packed New York City theater, and what surprised me the most was how much controversy this one owl sparked among local (and national) bird experts at the time.

The Flaco debate: As an escaped zoo animal in an unfamiliar environment, Flaco was never expected to make it more than a week or two without food. But he learned to hunt and survive on his own, leading some local birders to believe he was better off outside of his exhibit. In Wild Inside, the documentary filmmaker reviews the circumstances of Flaco’s escape—implying that he may not have been in as good care at the zoo as one might expect (click through the link above to read more about the accusations). However, bird conservationists argue that captivity can protect non-native birds from harm, especially from rodenticide and other environmental threats that are ubiquitous in New York City.

What the experts say: Many experts didn’t agree on what was best for Flaco. “It can be easy to forget that we share urban spaces with other animals ... and that there are concrete, tractable policies that can improve their well-being,” says Jeff Sebo, director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection and principal investigator of the Wildlife Inclusive Local Development (WILD) Lab at New York University. “Flaco reminded us of these realities. And what we need to do now is apply that same level of concern to other urban animals, too.”

What Emma says: I’m not usually swayed by “brave animal movies.” But by the time this film was over, I was sobbing in the theater, along with pretty much everyone else. Yes, Flaco was beloved, but the greater tragedy to me was that city-dwellers can love their birds and animals so much, yet create an environment that hurts them, even when the critters beat the odds and learn to survive on our turf. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Black and white photo of an Egyptian sarcophagus

Scientific American, Vol. 134, No. 5; May 1926

From the May 1926 issue: "Within the burial chamber hewn from the solid rock, Tut-ankh-amen’s mummy was protected by many enclosures of wood, stone and gold. First came three large wooden, box-like shrines, one within the other. These were removed to reveal a great sarcophagus of yellow quartzite with a granite lid."

SCIENCE QUIZ

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READER SUBMISSION

Today in Science reader Bob Goren sent in this cool image he took of Wednesday's solar eclipse from the Lafayette Hill neighborhood outside of Philadelphia, PA, at the height of the eclipse (for that latitude). He snapped this image with an iPhone 16 through a pair of welder's glasses. Clever!