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This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, according to UNESCO, marking 100 years since quantum mechanics was proposed. The theory hardly needed the extra publicity, though.

Look at any science magazine’s trending articles, and there’s a good chance quantum stories will be among the top rankings. Cute animals aside, quantum physics might be science fans’ favorite cover story. But why?

I’m a science journalist with a physics degree, and this question fascinates me. It’s not obvious why the public is so enraptured with quantum physics, a field that is notoriously difficult to explain and even more challenging to connect to everyday experience. Yet what I call the “quantum fixation” has prevailed almost since the theory originated.

I had the opportunity to research the perennial popularity of quantum physics for my master’s dissertation in science communication, and I chose to dive into the archives of Scientific American in search of an answer. As the U.S.’s oldest continually published magazine—180 years now—it is one of the few publications old enough to have witnessed the birth of the quantum age and has helped introduce it to the public.

Over the course of a few months, I searched the archives for articles with any mention of the word quantum in the past 100 years of print coverage. In analyzing who wrote these articles, what they chose to write about, and how they conveyed the often-confusing quantum world to general readers, I hoped to discover what the public found so compelling about quantum physics.

t turns out that what draws us to quantum physics are the same things its founders found repulsive about it.

Quantum Beginnings

You have to feel sorry for quantum mechanics sometimes. The scientists that founded it were among its harshest critics. In 1905, Albert Einstein first popularized the word quanta (derived from the Latin term for “how much”) to describe light as composed of discrete packets or bundles of energy known as photons.

At the beginning, quantum theory was just the simple idea that energy came in these discrete units. But even that notion was polarizing because experiments had already shown that light behaved, in many situations, like a wave.

Even then, established scientists struggled to communicate quantum ideas to a general audience. Quantum theory was a significant departure from simple, realist notions of science, where we have a straightforward correspondence between the words we use and the objects we’re referring to.

Newton’s first law of motion, for instance, describes how an object moves in a straight line unless an outside force acts upon it. This mass exists as a real entity with clearly defined and consistent properties we can measure.

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Richard Jones/Science Source

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When I started out, the goal was pretty straightforward: Make lots of money. Like most new entrepreneurs, I figured once I’d “made it,” then I’d give back. That part would come later. Success first, impact second.

Looking back, I now realize that mentality was a massive mistake. In fact, I believe it was one of the fundamental reasons it took me years to find any success. I now realize that pushing purpose to the back burner might be the thing that stalls your growth even more than poor marketing.

Everything turned around for me when I stopped “chasing paper” and started asking how I could help. When that shift happened, my business started to thrive in ways I never expected. And the money? It followed, as a side effect. It’s a fact that we all know deep down, but too often forget.

We’re told that giving back is something you earn the right to do once your company is big, your team is built, and your bank account looks a certain way. But the reality is that purpose isn’t a luxury; it’s a growth strategy. This attitude of abundance needs to be something that you embody both internally and externally as well.

The first focus needs to be on how you approach your day-to-day operations. At BotBuilders, our work centers around AI and automation. But that’s not really what drives us. The deeper mission is helping small business owners believe in what they’re building and giving them tools to actually pull it off.

The more we’ve invested in our clients’ success, the more we’ve seen our own business expand. Not just in revenue, but in reach, loyalty and community. Real relationships have carried us further than any marketing tactic ever could. It’s not something you can track or budget for, but we’ve all experienced how one relationship can lead to exponential growth, on many levels.

The second way to have an impact is how your company shows outside of your core competency. Namely, in your community. How often do you and your team get out and serve those who need it most? Money is great, but there is no comparison to the difference that a smile can make.

One of the biggest culture-shaping moments we’ve ever had started in the most unexpected place: a bowling alley in Arizona. Working with Special Olympics Arizona, we put together the Bowl-A-Thon Bash. The annual event pairs athletes with local business owners for high-fives, gutter balls, and a whole lot of laughter.

At first, it felt like a one-off community event. But after that night, something shifted. It became tradition. And every year we go back it resets something in us. We leave lighter, clearer, and more in tune with what really matters. That one night has done more to anchor our company values than any vision statement ever could.

Don’t get me wrong, money is important. I’m not dismissing that. But if we’re talking about real impact? Giving your time and actually showing up, things just hit different. Over the years, our team has done all kinds of small things that ended up being huge. We’ve served meals at shelters. We’ve planted trees. We’ve hosted holiday parties in retirement homes just to bring some joy to folks who don’t get many visitors.

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At 10 years old, brainiac Sean the Science Kid already has plenty in common with Dr. Sanjay Gupta: He loves to learn and explain science to his million-plus Instagram followers. They discuss their shared love of the brain—and Sean takes the mic to ask Dr. Gupta some of his own questions.

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Sean the Science Kid

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, will be facing a political test when Congress reconvenes this fall as lawmakers will be considering a new funding bill to avoid a government shutdown

Why It Matters

Democratic voters across the country have become increasingly frustrated with what they view as a feeble response from congressional leaders to President Donald Trump’s agenda amid his second term in office. Democrats in Congress lack a majority in the House and Senate, limiting their ability to block his agenda from passing, but voters have pushed for stronger action from elected officials.

Schumer faced a tsunami of Democratic backlash in March after he declined to block a Republican-led stopgap bill to avoid a government shutdown. Schumer and eight other Democrats voted in favor of a procedural motion to allow debate on the bill but ultimately voted against its passage. That vote, however, allowed it to pass the filibuster and become law, Democratic critics say.

What To Know

Congress has until October 1 to pass a series of bills to fund the government through fiscal year (FY) 2026. Republicans have slim majorities in both chambers—a 219-212 advantage in the House and a 53-47 advantage in the Senate—meaning any vote on the package may again prove to be a tight vote.

This presents challenges for both parties—Republican leaders will have to appease both swing-district moderates and Make America Great Again (MAGA)-aligned conservatives

However, Democrats like Schumer will also be facing a test as he seeks to appease the Democratic voter base, while also working with Republicans to get some concessions in the bills.

In March, Democrats from across the spectrum expressed frustration with Schumer and other Democrats advancing the spending bill despite a lack of concessions made by Republicans to earn his support on the bill, which critics argued cut critical programs. Democrats called for Schumer to face a future primary or step down as party leader, which he has declined to do.

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Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Associated Press/Canva/Getty

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Gigantic trenches known as gullies are opening up in cities in Africa, swallowing up homes and businesses, sometimes in an instant, a study has found.

About 118,600 people, on average, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) alone were displaced between 2004 and 2023, according to researchers reporting their findings in Nature.

Without urgent action, researchers estimate that hundreds of thousands of people across Africa are likely to be displaced within the next 10 years, including more than one-quarter of the 770,000 or so people in the DRC living in the expected expansion zone of these gullies.

“It’s an underestimated and severely under-researched hazard,” says study co-author Matthias Vanmaercke, a geographer at the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium. It is caused by “a combination of natural and human factors,” he says, but this is “not at all unavoidable.”

Expanding gullies

Gullies are expanding across cities that are built on sandy soils and lack adequate drainage. When there are heavy rains, water accumulates on roads and rooftops. When the drainage systems are inadequate, the water finds its way into unprotected ground, carving deep holes that can stretch for hundreds of metres. Over time, the gullies swallow houses and other infrastructure, and sometimes even result in deaths.

Vanmaercke and his colleagues used satellite images taken between 2021 and 2023 to identify 2,922 urban gullies in 26 of 47 cities, covering a cumulative distance of nearly 740 kilometres. The team cross-checked these images with historical aerial photographs stored at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium and found that only 46 of the gullies were present in the 1950s. This “gave the first clear indication that this is indeed attributable to the ongoing urbanization,” Vanmaercke says.

In 99% of cases, the gullies had expanded by at least 10 square metres between 2004 and 2023. The average gully was 253 metres long and 31 metres across at its widest point, and nearly all of them were linked to the road network. “The water cannot infiltrate, and it concentrates along these roads, which basically become big canals that turn into rivers,” says Vanmaercke.

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