r/science

About r/science

In its own words:

This community is a place to share and discuss new scientific research. Read about the latest advances in astronomy, biology, medicine, physics, social science, and more. Find and submit new publications and popular science coverage of current research.

The community was created on Oct 18, 2006, which makes it 20 years old. Since Oct 19, 2026, it has gained 6,870 subscribers (+0.02%). Among the 6 communities on our science list it is the largest. It sits just behind r/memes (#10) and ahead of r/Showerthoughts (#12) in our ranking.

What sets r/science apart

Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (08:00 UTC) sees about 8.7× as many posts as the quietest (21:00 UTC).

Subscriber growth

Between Sep 19, 2026 and Oct 29, 2026, r/science grew from 34,551,552 to 34,575,992 subscribers (+24.4K, +0.07%). That is about 611 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (8 so far), so it gets longer every week.

Top posts on r/science this week

This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Oct 29, 2026).

1. Magic mushroom compound psilocybin grows new brain connections within 24 hours and repairs circuits damaged by chronic stress in mice. Scientists found the brain rewiring runs on a different pathway …u/mvea · Oct 25 · link
2. Researchers found that older adults who napped frequently—defined as most days or every day—had a 48% higher risk of developing dementia compared to those who rarely or never napped, even after accou…u/Wagamaga · Oct 24 · link
3. A simple liquid can stop cavities without drilling | Scientists have confirmed that silver diamine fluoride, an inexpensive liquid can stop tooth decay in seconds without drilling or anesthesia, pote…u/FreeHugs23 · Oct 26 · link
4. 16 Years After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Deep-Sea Marine Life in the Gulf of Mexico Has Yet to Recover, With Populations of Fish, Crustaceans, Squid, and Octopuses Declining by Around 60% and …u/FreeHugs23 · Oct 23 · link
5. Young adults with cancer report getting dismissed by doctorsu/LogicalDirect · Oct 27 · link
6. A virus that infected chimps (but not humans) 4 million years ago left DNA that switches off a gene helping young brain cells grow and connect. Turning it off in lab-grown human mini-brains stunted n…u/mvea · Oct 24 · link
7. Very religious Americans read the Bible's message on helping the poor differently depending on their income: those earning under $50k say it means building a fairer society, while those earning $100k…u/mvea · Oct 28 · link
8. Splitting a workout into 3 quick 1-minute sets of 20 squats spread across the day built about the same strength as doing all 60 squats in one go, an 8-week study of 45 young weight lifters found. The…u/mvea · Oct 29 · link
9. When angry about the country, White men mostly campaign and donate, while Black women campaign the hardest and are the only group whose anger reliably leads to street protests. Black and White women …u/mvea · Oct 23 · link
10. When the UK made teens stay in school one extra year (until age 16) in 1972, people who got that extra year had fewer dementia diagnoses nearly 50 years later. The benefit even held for people with h…u/mvea · Oct 26 · link

All-time top posts

The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/science, from 2017 to 2022, ranked by Reddit.

1. Physicist Stephen Hawking dies aged 76u/ScienceModerator · Mar 14, 2018 · 194,183 points · 4,022 comments · text post
2. The first picture of a black hole opens a new era of astrophysics. The supermassive beast lies in a galaxy called M87 more than 50 million light-years awayu/Science_News · Apr 10, 2019 · 153,552 points · 5,660 comments · link
3. Since legalizing cannabis in 2012, crime clearance rates are increasing faster in Washington and Colorado than the rest of country, suggesting that legalization may free police to focus on more serio…u/sugarlandd · Jul 19, 2018 · 124,034 points · 4,971 comments · link
4. Raising the taxes of graduate students by as much as 300% will be a disaster for the USAu/nate · Nov 19, 2017 · 123,502 points · 11,670 comments · text post
5. Attractive female students no longer earned higher grades when classes moved online during COVID-19Nov 9, 2022 · 123,474 points · 4,042 comments · link
6. No evidence to support link between violent video games and behaviour - Researchers at the University of York have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent.u/mvea · Jan 22, 2018 · 113,499 points · 3,918 comments · link
7. LED lights found to kill coronavirus efficiently, quickly, and cheaply, a global first in fight against COVID-19. The finding suggests the UV-LEDs can be installed in air conditioning and water syste…u/mvea · Dec 14, 2020 · link
8. Wealthy, successful people from privileged backgrounds often misrepresent their origins as working-class in order to tell a ‘rags to riches’ story resulting from hard work and perseverance, rather th…u/sciposts · Feb 1, 2021 · link
9. New study finds that most redditors don’t actually read the articles they vote on.u/AdamCannon · Nov 30, 2017 · 108,218 points · 4,755 comments · link
10. Scientists believe that the function of zebras' stripes are to deter insects, so a team of researchers painted black and white stripes on cows. They found that it reduced the number of biting flies l…u/SteRoPo · Oct 7, 2019 · 109,322 points · 2,061 comments · link

What r/science talks about

Looking at the titles of 233 recent posts (Oct 21–Oct 28), the words that come up most are “study”, “found”, “brain”, “risk” and “researchers”. Other frequent themes are associated, adults, research, linked, patients and scientists. Recurring phrases include “study finds”, “study found”, “higher risk” and “adults found”. By format, 99% are links, 0% are images and 0% are text posts.

• study 50
• found 34
• brain 25
• risk 19
• researchers 18
• associated 17
• adults 17
• research 14
• linked 14
• patients 13
• scientists 12
• finds 11
• health 11
• higher 10
• cancer 10
• likely 10
• trial 10
• cells 10

Popular post flairs: Health (32), Psychology (27), Neuroscience (25), Biology (23), Medicine (17), Cancer (15).

Activity and best time to post

r/science gets about 38 new posts a day. The public archive holds 941,487 posts and 21,627,216 comments in total, about 23.0 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (51 posts) and the quietest was Sunday (21). Posting peaks around 08:00 UTC and is lowest around 21:00 UTC.

Rules of r/science

The moderators of r/science list 10 rules. In short:

1. Must be peer-reviewed research
2. No summaries of summaries, rehosts, or reposts
3. No editorialized, sensationalized, or biased titles
4. Research must be less than 6 months old
5. No off-topic comments, memes, low-effort comments or jokes
6. No abusive or offensive comments
7. Non-professional personal anecdotes will be removed
8. Criticism of published work should assume basic competence of the researchers and reviewers
9. Comments dismissing established findings and fields of science must provide evidence
10. No medical advice

How to join

Open reddit.com/r/science and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.

Frequently asked questions

Stats from public data (data updated Oct 29, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Oct 29, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/science.