Topologists prove two new results that bring some order to the confoundingly difficult study of four-dimensional shapes. The post Mathematicians Marvel at ‘Crazy’ Cuts Through Four Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness. The post Insects and Other Anim

The prolific researcher found deep connections between randomness and computation and spent a career influencing cryptographers, complexity researchers and more. The post Avi Wigderson, Complexity Theory Pioneer, Wins Turing Award first ap

Mathematicians have struggled to prove Falconer’s Conjecture, a simple, but far-reaching, hypothesis about the distances between points. They’re finally getting close. The post Number of Distances Separating Points Has a New Bound first ap

The timing of the total eclipse on April 8, 2024, will be known to within a second, thousands of years after fearful humans first started trying to anticipate these cosmic events. The post How the Ancient Art of Eclipse Prediction Became a

After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined. The post Overexposure Distorted the Science of Mirror Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazin

Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places where it’s hard to vote. The post Topologists Tackle the Trouble With Poll Placement first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The French mathematician spent decades developing a set of tools now widely used for taming random processes. The post Michel Talagrand Wins Abel Prize for Work Wrangling Randomness first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres. The post Doubts Grow About the Biosignature Approach to Alien-Hunting first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers have shown that a problem relating to the energy of a quantum system is easy for quantum computers but hard for classical ones. The post Physicists Finally Find a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Can Do first appeared on Qua

By mapping the largest structures in the universe in X-rays, cosmologists have found striking agreement with their standard theoretical model of how the universe evolves. The post Fresh X-Rays Reveal a Universe as Clumpy as Cosmology Predi

The visual systems of an obscure group of mollusks provide a rare natural example of path-dependent evolution, in which a critical fork in the creatures’ past determined their evolutionary futures. The post Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future E

Erasing key information during training results in machine learning models that can learn new languages faster and more easily. The post How Selective Forgetting Can Help AI Learn Better first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Simple rules in simple settings continue to puzzle mathematicians, even as they devise intricate tools to analyze them. The post ‘Entropy Bagels’ and Other Complex Structures Emerge From Simple Rules first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new study suggests that so-called emergent abilities actually develop gradually and predictably, depending on how you measure them. The post How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from. The post Radio Maps May Reveal the Universe

When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network is active. Its discovery 20 years ago inspired a raft of research into networks of brain regions and how they interact with each other. The post What Your Brain Is Doing When

Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation. The post How to Build an Origami Computer first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Integer linear programming can help find the answer to a variety of real-world problems. Now researchers have found a much faster way to do it. The post Researchers Approach New Speed Limit for Seminal Problem first appeared on Quanta Maga

Some neighborhoods in the Milky Way may be better suited for making habitable planets than others. The post The Best Neighborhoods for Starting a Life in the Galaxy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of every possible length. The post Math’s ‘Game of Life’ Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns first appeared on Quanta Magazine

As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know. The post How to Guarantee the Safety of Autonomous Vehicles first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align. The post New Kind of Magnetism Spotted in an Engineered Material first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Biologists discovered that mitochondria in different tissues talk to each other to repair injured cells. When their signal fails, the biological clock starts winding down. The post Cells Across the Body Talk to Each Other About Aging first

Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? The post New Clues for What Will Happen When the Sun Eats the Earth first appeared on Quanta Maga

For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync a biological clock to the phases of the moon. The post How This Marine Worm Can Tell Moonglow From Sunbeams first appeared on Quanta Magazi

Two researchers have improved a well-known technique for lattice basis reduction, opening up new avenues for practical experiments in cryptography and mathematics. The post Celebrated Cryptography Algorithm Gets an Upgrade first appeared o

The Markov numbers reveal the secrets of irrational numbers and the patterns of the Fibonacci sequence. But there’s one question about them that has resisted proof for over a century. The post A Triplet Tree Forms One of the Most Beautiful

A century ago, the Stern-Gerlach experiment established the truth of quantum mechanics. Now it’s being used to probe the clash of quantum theory and gravity. The post The (Often) Overlooked Experiment That Revealed the Quantum World first

Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way. The post Evolving Bac