Plants
Explainer: How a seed grows into a plant
Plants use carbon from the air to make food and build shoots, roots and more. They adapt and respond to their environments in many incredible ways.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Want your own AI double? There could be big benefits — and risks
People are using AI to mimic their own voice, likeness and personality. Some are excited about these new digital clones. Others worry, what could go wrong?
Explainer
Technically Fiction
Physics
Can a supervillain destroy the sun?
Although our sun is a dwarf yellow star, it’s more than massive enough to weather any attempts to alter it — super or otherwise.
Profile
Artificial Intelligence
This researcher investigates the risks of digitally cloning the dead
Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basińska investigates the risk of AI-driven grief bots — while commuting between Poland and England.
Features
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Are plants intelligent? It seems to depend on how you define it
Plants can do a lot of the same things animals do: communicate, learn — even remember. Now scientists want to know if that means they’re intelligent.
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Want your own AI double? There could be big benefits — and risks
People are using AI to mimic their own voice, likeness and personality. Some are excited about these new digital clones. Others worry, what could go wrong?
More Stories from the August 1, 2025 issue
- Tech
To stay cool, some future homes may build on past power-free tech
Accordion-pleated walls and other heat-managing structures could cool homes in hot, dry places naturally — without electricity.
- Health & Medicine
Scratching an itch has both good effects and bad
Mice that scratch itchy ears trigger more redness and swelling — but also may combat harmful bacteria.
- Chemistry
Experiment: Blow the best homemade bubbles
What’s the best recipe for blowing the most impressive bubbles? Let’s find out.
- Animals
Some fish have legs that can taste prey underfoot
Taste buds on those legs may explain why northern sea robins are so good at finding food that is buried in the sandy seafloor.
- Planets
A giant, busted planet fuels a nebula’s mysterious glow
This Helix Nebula is like a colorful explosion frozen in time. Its center seems to be steadily radiating X-rays.
