February 25, 2026—There’s some surprising physics behind why shoes squeak so much on NBA courts. Plus, heart disease in women is expected to rise sharply and the truth about polyamory.
—Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor
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Adel Djellouli/Harvard University
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- A physics study explains why basketball players’ shoes are so squeaky. | 3 min read
- Wellness influencer Casey Means is having her senate confirmation hearing for U.S. surgeon general today. | 3 min read
- A Nobel Prize-winning brain scientist stepped down from his post at Columbia over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. | 2 min read
- NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory finds a young sun’s protective “bubble” expanding with hot gas. | 2 min read
- Wild chimps eat enough fermented fruit to get tipsy. | 2 min read
- This sick photo shows blue sparks on the tips of trees, generated from the electric charge of a simulated thunderstorm. | 2 min read
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The Psychology of Polyamory
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Polyamorous people are those knowingly in multiple committed relationships at one time. Some of the myths in mainstream culture around polyamory, like that it’s only for liberal elites or is just a way to justify cheating, don’t stand up to the swaths of evidence that say otherwise. Anthropologist Rebecca J. Lester interviewed more than 100 people—experts and polyamorists alike—to find out if the stereotypes hold up. Polyamory myth-busting:
- Liberal bubble: Poly people are actually more likely than any other relationship type group to make less than $40,000 a year. Also, polyamory is a rare place where the left and the right meet, sharing a common interest in rebelling against the powers that be.
- Unsafe sex: Researchers report that polyamorists engage in safer sex practices than people who say they’re monogamous.
- Unethical nonmonogamy: The people involved tend to say polyamory has ethics at its core. Communication, intimacy, and connection are traditionally prioritized in polyamorous arrangements.
Why it can work: Many polyamorous people prioritize personal autonomy, which forms the bedrock of their relationships. And this reflects a larger culture shift—one toward an era of total personalization seen everywhere from music playlists to medicine. To one polyamorous person interviewed for the story, “it makes the relationship about who we are as people to each other and how we value each other, not just about rules about possession and exclusivity.”
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When Push Comes to Shovel
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If you’re in the Northeast, you might still be dealing with the fallout of the blizzard earlier this week. A social question also arises in snowy conditions: Who should be shoveling shared spaces? A variation of the prisoner’s dilemma called the “snowdrift problem” forces players to ask themselves the same question.
How it works: The snowdrift problem goes like this: You and another driver separately are on the way to work, when you’re blocked on opposite sides of a snowbank in the road. You get the most points if you can convince the other driver to do all of the shoveling, some points if you work together, less if you shovel yourself, and none if you both do nothing. In the prisoner’s dilemma, you and a friend rob a bank, but when you’re arrested, you can go free if you snitch but the other person doesn’t. If you both snitch, you both go to jail. In both the snowdrift problem and the prisoner’s dilemma, it’s generally smarter to cheat your opponent. But studies show that people are more cooperative when solving the snowdrift problem.
Why this is interesting: Many sociologists think the snowdrift problem is a better proxy for real-world cooperative challenges, where betrayal often hurts oneself as well as others. Recently, mathematicians evaluated a new strategy to approach the snowdrift problem that roughly translates to: check whether your neighbors are cooperating; if the roads near their homes look clear, then you should decide to pitch in, too.
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A new projection showed how rates of cardiovascular disease are expected to increase in women from 2020-2050. The jump is most pronounced for women aged 22-44. Across the board, the prevalence of serious cardiovascular disease and stroke in women in the U.S. is expected to rise from 10.7 percent to 14.4 percent—affecting more than 22 million people. The risk factors are high and increasing in young people, experts say, but also socioeconomic and demographic factors may influence these outcomes. |
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Amanda Montañez; Source: “Forecasting the Burden of Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Women in the United States through 2050: A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association,” by Karen E. Joynt et al., in Circulation, Vol. 153. Published online February 25, 2026 (data)
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Travel with Scientific American
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2027 Solar Eclipse on the Nile
Experience the 2027 total solar eclipse – more than six minutes of totality – from the deck of a luxury Nile River ship on this incredible 10-day journey led by Chief of Reporters Clara Moskowitz.
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- Explore the possibilities of how climate change may be affecting your wallet. | The New York Times
- Conservationists are making rhinos radioactive to prevent poaching. | MIT Technology Review
- AI bots Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini all love to recommend nuclear strikes in war game simulations. | New Scientist
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I appreciated how the heart disease story from today’s infographic doesn’t shy away from the feeling of pure disappointment this finding is sure to provoke. There is so much promise in the world of health research today: cancer vaccines, improved screening for Alzheimer’s, advances in transplantation technology and more. But too often, products of systemic inequities that don’t have anything to do with research advancement, like how Black women have the highest incidence of high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes, stand in the way of thwarting disappointing trends.
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Please send any ideas, comments or feedback on this newsletter to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor
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