March 18, 20253 min readA Neurodivergent Journey, Armored Dinosaurs and the Dark SectorIn the April issue of SciAm, follow a mans journey to a diagnosis, learn about exciting new schizophrenia treatments, and moreBy Jeanna Bryner Scientific American, April 2025When I first came across the term neurodivergent, after it was coined about 25 years ago by activist Kassiane Asasumasu, I didnt realize the weight it would hold in society. The nonjudgmental label, which describes people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, tics, and many other brain-based phenomena, indicates a divergence from the typical rather than a deficit. Now, after Ive interacted with many diverse humans and begun raising kids whose minds and behaviors consistently both baffle and amaze me, the term feels personal: one of my main goals as a parent has been to engender in my children kindness and openness toward all that is different.Journalist Paul Marino describes his own experience with neurodivergence: a decades-long search for a diagnosis to explain a recurring burst of involuntary movements that involve flickering his fingers rapidly on either side of his face. At one point in high school Marino was so embarrassed by this motoring (which he now knows is a kind of complex motor stereotypy, or CMS) that he wrapped his fingers together with Scotch tape. He describes his journey in intimate and honest language. After reading his story, I better understood not only the fascinating ways the human brain can shape thoughts and behaviors but also how being yourself can be the best medicine. As one neurologist told Marino, a better world would be one in which we did not pathologize CMS but erased its stigma. I will share this touching feature with a loved one with tics who is incredibly kind, athletic, compassionate, smart ... and be open to sharing with others why they make noises or wink for seemingly no reason.Sometimes dysfunction in the brain can lead to mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, which is characterized by delusions and disordered thinking, among other symptoms, that can be debilitating. Journalist Diana Kwon tells us how a promising new type of drug and other advances reveal a picture of the illness that is more complex than anyone had realized.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Our cover story looks at another complex puzzle. Galaxies, including ours, bathe in oceans of dark matter, which communicates with our world mainly through gravity. The problem is physicists have yet to uncover the identity of this invisible stuff. For the past 30-some years they have searched for individual hypothetical dark matter particles, to no avail. Now theoretical physicist Kathryn Zurek provocatively describes how dark matter may in fact be a whole hidden sector of dark particles and forces that could combine and interact, just as visible matter does. New experiments to detect quantum disturbances in special materials could tease out this parallel world.Scientific American senior news reporter Meghan Bartels follows two beloved spacecraft, Voyagers 1 and 2, on their epic tour past the outer planets, across the edge of the suns influence (the heliosphere) and into interstellar space. Along the way, youll see how these iconic missions have upended what scientists thought they knew about the great beyond.Hurricane Katrina, which barreled onto the Gulf Coast 20 years ago in August, was a turning point in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approach to disaster-risk reduction. If levees and dams hadnt deprived healthy marshes of their sediments, they could have acted as baffles to the storms deadly sea surges. Now the Corps is leaning into nature-based solutions. Author Erica Gies writes about some of the most promising Corps projects that work with nature, along with some of the setbacks.The horned and armored dinosaurs of the Mesozoic were not to be messed with: recently discovered, exquisitely preserved fossils of two such beasts show details of their weaponry never seen before, suggesting some of the bulky spikes, blades, plates and horns of dinosaurs were far larger and tougher than previously thought. Paleontologist Michael B. Habib has great fun describing this research and what it means for a long-running debate about the function of these superb accoutrements.