The Quanta Podcast
Quanta MagazineThe Quanta Podcast
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself, and much more, The Quanta Podcast is a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown. In each episode, Quanta Magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel speaks with the minds behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math. Quanta specifically covers fundamental research — driven by curiosity, discovery and the overwhelming desire to know why and how. Join us every Tuesday for a stimulating conversation about the biggest ideas and the tiniest details.
(If you've been a fan of the Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue here. You'll see those episodes marked as audio edition episodes every two weeks.)
Quanta Magazine
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself, and much more, The Quanta Podcast is a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown. In each episode, Quanta Magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel speaks with the minds behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math. Quanta specifically covers fundamental research — driven by curiosity, discovery and the overwhelming desire to know why and how. Join us every Tuesday for a stimulating conversation about the biggest ideas and the tiniest details.
(If you've been a fan of the Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue here. You'll see those episodes marked as audio edition episodes every two weeks.)
Quanta Magazine
“Jumping genes” can cut and paste themselves into new locations in the genome. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk.
Jacob Tsimerman won a Fields Medal this year in part for his proof of the André-Oort conjecture. The honor reflects a career borrowing techniques from one area of math and leveraging them in another to reveal surprising underlying structure.
With a simple tweak, scientists can reverse the energy flow of turbulence in a 2D system.
Hong Wang, who proved the three-dimensional Kakeya set conjecture, won the Fields Medal, making her the third woman in the award’s 90-year history to receive math’s highest honor.
Astronomers suspect that two of the mysterious objects from the early universe known as little red dots are giant stars with black holes hidden inside them.
In the mid-19th century, a brain teaser about map colors quickly turned into an obsession. Today, the hunt is still on for a simpler solution to the deceptively tricky problem.
Computer scientists know that certain problems in their field are hard, but proving their difficulty is a hard problem unto itself. A topsy-turvy approach to mathematics has helped show why.
Is computer science about computers? If not, then what is it about?
A process called categorization allows the brain to use past experiences that resemble a new situation to implement actions and behaviors.
Genome sequencing technology is introducing biologists to a world of quasi-life forms that they’ve never met before.
A recent breakthrough in combinatorial discrepancy theory helps even things out.
A strange connection between black holes and quantum soups helped scientists to understand the elusive math behind fluid dynamics.
In 3D, area-minimizing surfaces are smooth, making them widely useful. But in higher dimensions, complicated singularities might form.
Are we at the point where our technology is actually “reasoning,” or should that word still live within its scare quotes?
Columnist Natalie Wolchover tracks the secret of left-handedness through developmental biology, genetics, evolution, and culture.
In a theory called quadratic gravity, “ghost” particles violate physicists’ intuition of quantum fields. This made the theory unpopular for decades. Now, it’s experiencing a resurgence.
Generally, dark energy and dark matter are regarded as separate entities. But what if the two are in fact physically intertwined?
Living things have goals: to find food, to reproduce, and to survive. Are those just genetically programmed, or do organisms have actual agency?
AI understands discrete tasks, and can often extrapolate its training to other tasks, but it still lacks a full model of the real world. Researchers are racing to construct a ‘world model’ that would bring about more general artificial intelligence.
Sloppy shufflers, fret not: A new proof confirms how many shuffles it takes to randomize an imprecisely cut deck.
Volcano forecasting can save countless lives. But most of the time warnings are more like educated guesses.
Ancient cells called Asgard archaea were first discovered at the hydrothermal vent site called Loki's Castle in 2010. Their discovery has shaken up our view of the Tree of Life.
Decades ago, scientists allegedly fed a memory to a worm. Then, 36 labs reported similar results. But today, when scientists tried to recreate the experiments, using the same protocol and with the help of the 1960s scientists, they came up empty. What happened?
We have a full tally of the elementary particles, but the deeper you go into that count, the more complicated — and weirder — the answer becomes.
The Fourier transform breaks tricky functions down into their wavelike building blocks. This has made it a crucial tool for mathematicians: If they are stumped by a problem, they can try transforming it.
The computer program Lean might revolutionize mathematics. It has verified more than a quarter of a million theorems and led to new insights. But does it change what math is, or can be?
Remarkably, some species can flip between two ecotypes after just a few generations — far shorter than the typically lengthy course of natural selection.
Chains of high-energy electron avalanches may very likely be what makes clouds glow, flicker, and flash with gamma rays. But are they the elusive cause of lightning?
Hundreds of signals from colliding black holes over the past decade show that if black holes are sporting quantum “hair," it must be very short.
AI is rapidly changing how mathematicians do math. They must now reckon with why they do it.
Ice comes in many more forms than the cubes in your water glass. Scientists have found about 20 phases of ice, including hot ice and bendy ice and ice that conducts electricity. And according to simulations, there could be many more out there.
The field of AI is utilizing the handy technique of distillation to make smaller and cheaper neural networks.
Your immune system fights off today’s viruses with machinery that is billions of years old.
Most mathematicians take the notion of infinity for granted — it’s deeply rooted in math’s most fundamental assumptions. But a small group of researchers hopes to banish infinity completely.
Deep in a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park resides a bacterium that does what life really shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.
Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard have been named the winners of the A.M. Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computing, for their work establishing the foundations of quantum information theory.
For decades, physicists have engaged in bitter back-and-forths over whether string theory is worth studying. The “string wars” aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
A recent mathematical breakthrough may help inspire more realistic models for how electrons behave in semiconductors.
Each pore into the nucleus is guarded by a jumble of proteins. These molecular bouncers work together to determine which VIPs are allowed into the most exclusive organelle of the cell.
The computer program Lean might revolutionize mathematics. But might it also erode conceptual and ideological diversity?
Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that work better than human physicists’, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.”
AI breakthroughs have made humanoid robots more capable than ever. But they still struggle with everyday tasks like stairs and doors.
Around the world, glass photographic plates from old telescopes are at risk. On them lies a history of our ever-changing cosmos.
A recent paper shows that the “creativity” of certain AI may actually be a direct, inevitable consequence of how they are built.
Once considered merely packing peanuts for the brain, new studies suggest that large brain cells called astrocytes supervise the circuits that control brain states like hopelessness, sleep, and hunger.
The effort to change math with the concept of infinity hit several snags along the way. In the second part of a two-part episode, we pick up the story of Georg Cantor and follow the quest for the hidden truth about his most famous paper.
Why do some natural habitats get overrun by invasive species while others seem to repel outside threats?
How did the concept of infinity make the leap from a blasphemous idea to a foundational principle of modern mathematics? It was a hard-fought battle, rife with pride, betrayal, and dissolution. In the first part of a two-part episode, we set the scene at the dawn of modern math.
At the subatomic scale, things only make sense from a quantum perspective. How do those non-intuitive rules make the leap to classical physics, the macro language of everyday life?
At the microscopic scale, time is reversible. But when you zoom out, there is no going back. Why is this true?
When you navigate busy streets, a set of neurons is helping to guide you. But it’s not easy to simulate mental map-building in a lab.
One of the greatest challenges in math is to understand the equations that describe a river current or a breeze. Researchers are tackling the problem with a new computational approach.
In our world, all particles fall into one of two types. Fermions must keep to themselves, while bosons can behave the same way in the same place.
As AI models grow more powerful, they appear to be converging on how they internally represent reality.
In the first of our new series of curiosity-driven essays, Qualia, Columnist Natalie Wolchover asks particle physicists whether the field is facing a profound crisis.
Running computers backward may soon push their efficiency forward.
Growing evidence in mouse models suggests that non-DNA sperm molecules can pass along a dad’s condition at the time of conception.
How two mathematicians found a shape that resolves a centuries-old geometric mystery.
When you're chillin’, your brain is mostly *not* chillin’.
There’s more than one way to trick an AI filter.
A bird’s physiology transforms when it’s time to migrate.
What if gravity isn’t a pull from mass, but a push from entropy?
A phenomenon at the heart of one of the most famous proofs in modern math is now even more useful.
A new trick for detecting quantum entanglement could be as simple as using a thermometer.
Two mathematicians have proved that a measurement called the unknotting number falls short of its mathematical promise.
In a packed stadium with 30,000 seats, some attendees must have the same four-digit password, or PIN, for their bank cards. That’s because of a mathematical theorem that has spurred progress throughout computer science.
Crater Lake has been getting clearer. That’s probably not a good thing.
Price-setting algorithms can lead to unexpected behavior. Game theory can reveal how they go wrong.
Mathematicians have recently made strides toward understanding the behavior of ocean waves, a topic that has entranced scholars since ancient Greece.
Even when we think we’re fully awake, parts of our brain could be sleeping, and vice-versa.
A new proof has smoothed out our understanding of mean curvature flow.
A black hole unlike any seen before has been spotted in the early universe.
Climatologists, geologists and data scientists are building system models of Earth’s ancient past like we’ve never seen before.
Two new papers are reopening the case of a physics mystery that was believed to be solved decades ago.
Imagine a set of simple building blocks that can self-assemble into any shape you want. Digital “neural cellular automata” work this way, and might offer a whole new structure for computing.
Why is it so hard to predict when exactly the climate might suddenly shift?
Classical approaches haven’t dethroned a new quantum algorithm. Yet.
Neuroscientists are testing what one individual cell can remember.
The climate is changing. So is the way we understand the climate.
If one species emits a powerful enough chemical, its impact can ripple out across an entire ecosystem.
At some level, AI does seem to separate good things from bad. It just doesn’t seem to have a preference.
Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history, and its lessons are a massive human achievement.
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in 3D illuminates a whole crop of related problems.
A new proof written by a homeschooled teenager defies mathematicians’ usual intuitions about what functions can and cannot do.
Matter that sank to Earth’s center when it was a vast magmatic ocean billions of years ago is now, somehow, erupting under an azure sky.
How do planetary atmospheres form, and how are they lost? These two questions are carving out a new map of habitable alien realms.
Researchers are rebuilding the foundations of the tower of cryptography for a quantum future.
In the world of sphere packing, there’s been debate about whether order or a dash of chaos will give the best results. A recent proof marks a win for order.
All hash tables help a computer store and access data. Andrew Krapivin’s new version takes less time and fewer steps.
This summer, staff writer Charlie Wood joined hundreds of physicists on a journey to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics. The conversation was light, centering around questions like, where does our reality come from?
How do scent molecules translate into a neural language that triggers emotions and memories?
You’ve been told not to dwell on the past. But that’s exactly what the brain needs to do to make sense of the present.
How AI sent linguistic researchers into an existential crisis.
New work on the nature of infinity showcases how the world of set theory often exists in a realm beyond mathematical proof.
Britta Späth has dedicated her career to proving a single, central conjecture. She’s finally succeeded.
Did bright colors exist in deep evolutionary time?
What if gravity isn’t a pull from mass, but a push from entropy?
In the early 1900s, Emmy Noether explored the mathematical consequences of symmetries, shaking the foundations of physics.
Dam! A question about computation that can be asked at infinitely many tiers of complexity turned out to be dizzyingly difficult at just level five. We finally have an answer.
Last year, mathematicians proved for the first time that particles dropped in a simplified turbulent fluid exhibit “superdiffusion” — they spread out in a predictable but anomalously fast way.
After you listen to this podcast, it’s possible that you will have formed concept cells that code for concept cells.
A bird’s physiology transforms when it’s time to migrate.
Our universe may contain points where space-time becomes unrecognizable.
Is it possible for a system to be unmeltable? In theory, yes, according to new findings in the world of quantum physics.
A new proof upends a major assumption about the relationship between time and memory in computing.
AI is changing what it means to do math.
New research shows that LLMs, like humans, prefer to learn some linguistic patterns over others.
The first episode of our new show, The Quanta Podcast
Introducing The Quanta Podcast
Recent work brings quantum computers one step closer to practical applications.
New research hints that certain microbes can make it past the blood-brain barrier and inhabit a healthy vertebrate brain.
A recent spate of discoveries has both compounded the mystery of superconductivity and heightened optimism for its future applications.
In 1925, the photon wars ended. Now the graviton wars have begun.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what does it do in the mind?
The same electrostatic force that makes laundry cling can also help an insect survive.
The shape of a molecule can make or break whether an animal survives at the bottom of the ocean.
Quantum entanglement lets atoms copy each others' moves, but if the particle dance floor overheats, things come to a quick halt.
A recent study shows that there's a quantum reason for why CO₂ is so good at trapping heat.
How do you measure someone else's inner reality?
An old Soviet-American experiment's mysterious finding continues to elude explanation. Does it hold the secret to nature's lightest particles?
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems.
New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.
Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.
Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare
Dark Energy May Be Weakening, Major Astrophysics Study Finds
Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one knows why it works. New research suggests it may restore balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain.
Long-anticipated experiments that use light to mimic gravity are revealing the distribution of energies, forces and pressures inside a subatomic particle for the first time.
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
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.
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Dark Toys” by SYBS.
Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable diversity, with many thousands of subtly different types of cells in the human brain alone. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Confusing Disco” by Birocratic.
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.
Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Running Out” by Patrick Patrikios.
Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.
The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
The Reykjanes Peninsula has entered a new volcanic era. Innovative efforts to map and monitor the subterranean magma are saving lives. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Fire Water” by Saidbysed.
A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain.
To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler versions on synthetic children’s stories. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.
Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientists to wonder what governs their timing. A suite of new findings suggests that cells use basic metabolic processes as clocks. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that it has been disproved, the universe of shapes has exploded. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Slow Burn” by Kevin MacLeod.
By watching “minimal” cells regain the fitness they lost, researchers are testing whether a genome can be too simple to evolve. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Hidden Agenda” by Kevin MacLeod.
Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the large-scale smuggling of DNA between species. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Clover” by Vibe Mountain.
New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic fields in our own solar system. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the paths they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Confusing Disco” by Birocratic.
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Good Times” by Patrick Patrikios.
Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Who’s Using Who” by The Mini Vandals.
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Hidden Agenda” by Kevin MacLeod.
The most comprehensive survey of how we share our microbiomes suggests a new way of thinking about the risks of developing some diseases that aren’t usually considered contagious. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Transmission” by John Deley and the 41 Players.
The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Slow Burn” by Kevin MacLeod.
The neocortex of our brain is the seat of our intellect. New data suggests that mammals created it with new types of cells that they developed only after their evolutionary split from reptiles. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
A wave of research improves reinforcement learning algorithms by pre-training them as if they were human. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Redwood Trail” by Audionautix.
Queen ants live far longer than genetically identical workers. Researchers are learning what their longevity secrets could mean for aging in other species. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Good Times” by Patrick Patrikios.
The neural representations of a perceived image and the memory of it are almost the same. New work shows how and why they are different. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
What Causes Alzheimer's? Scientists Are Rethinking the Answer. (Pt 2)
After decades in the shadow of the reigning model for Alzheimer’s disease, alternative explanations are finally getting the attention they deserve. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Redwood Trail” by Audionautix.
Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
An energy-efficient chip called NeuRRAM fixes an old design flaw to run large-scale AI algorithms on smaller devices, reaching the same accuracy as wasteful digital computers. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Cast of Pods” by Doug Maxwell.
Supergenes that lock inherited traits together are widespread in nature. Recent work shows that their blend of genetic benefits and risks for species can be complex. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Chee Zee Jungle – Primal Drive” by Kevin MacLeod.
A recent gamma-ray burst known as the BOAT — “brightest of all time” — appears to have produced a high-energy particle that shouldn’t exist. For some, dark matter provides the explanation. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
The positively charged particle at the heart of the atom is an object of unspeakable complexity, one that changes its appearance depending on how it is probed. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
A new atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity seen in cuprate crystals, confirming a 35-year-old theory. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
Robots can surpass the limitations on how high and far animals can jump, but their success only underscores nature’s ingenuity in making the most of what’s available. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pixel Peeker Polka” by Kevin MacLeod.
When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Retro” by Wayne Jones.
Eric Larson and Isabel Vogt have solved the interpolation problem — a centuries-old question about some of the most basic objects in geometry. Some credit goes to the chalkboard in their living room. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Good Times” by Patrick Patrikios.
The key to understanding the origin and fate of the universe may be a more complete understanding of the vacuum. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
Partnerships between engineers and biologists have begun to reveal how birds evolved their superb maneuverability. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Running Out” by Patrick Patrikios.
Structural studies of the robust material called sporopollenin reveal how it made plants hardy enough to reproduce on dry land. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Redwood Trail” by Audionautix.
Protein buildups like those seen around neurons in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases occur in all aging cells, a new study suggests. Learning their significance may reveal new strategies for treating age-related diseases. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Aimless Amos” by Rondo Brothers.
Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.
Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Aimless Amos” by Rondo Brothers.
Jared Duker Lichtman, 26, has proved a longstanding conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it came as a “complete shock.” Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.
The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
Robots are about to venture into the sunless depths of lunar craters to investigate ancient water ice trapped there, while remote studies find hints about how water arrives on rocky worlds. Read more and explore infographics at quantamagazine.org.
For centuries, mathematicians have tried to prove that Euler’s fluid equations can produce nonsensical answers. A new approach to machine learning has researchers betting that “blowup” is near. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Transmission” by John Deley and the 41 Players.
Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize precisely when the brain initiates movements. It’s the latest revelation about the power of neuromodulators. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Pulse” by Geographer.
This Animal's Behavior Is Mechanically Programmed
Dwarf galaxies weren’t supposed to have big black holes. Their surprise discovery has revealed clues about how the universe’s biggest black holes could have formed. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
Physicists are reexamining a longstanding assumption: that big stuff consists of smaller stuff.
The post A Deepening Crisis Forces Physicists to Rethink Structure of Nature’s Laws first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory
Two teams have shown how quantum approaches can solve problems faster than classical computers, bringing physics and computer science closer together.
The post Machine Learning Gets a Quantum Speedup first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.
The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.
The post A Solution to the Faint-Sun Paradox Reveals a Narrow Window for Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Studies that map the adaptive value of viral mutations hint at how the COVID-19 pandemic might progress next.
The post Evolution ‘Landscapes’ Predict What’s Next for COVID Virus first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New studies reveal the ancient, shared genetic “grammar” underpinning the diverse evolution of fish fins and tetrapod limbs.
The post Flying Fish and Aquarium Pets Yield Secrets of Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for some of the most difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned out to be just as difficult to solve, until now.
The post Mathematicians Outwit Hidden Number Conspiracy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is “spectacularly wrong.”
The post Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
By carefully constructing a multidimensional and well-connected graph, a team of researchers has finally created a long-sought locally testable code that can immediately betray whether it’s been corrupted.
The post Researchers Defeat Randomness to Create Ideal Code first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on.
The post The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The molecular signaling systems of complex cells are nothing like simple electronic circuits. The logic governing their operation is riotously complex — but it has advantages.
The post Biologists Rethink the Logic Behind Cells’ Molecular Signals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity.
The post A Massive Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface first appeared on Quanta Magazine
One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles
Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.
The post The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
For 50 years, mathematicians have believed that the total number of real numbers is unknowable. A new proof suggests otherwise.
The post How Many Numbers Exist? Infinity Proof Moves Math Closer to an Answer. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
DNA Has Four Bases. Some Viruses Swap in a Fifth.
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.
The post The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New work suggests that the radiolytic splitting of water supports giant subsurface ecosystems of life on Earth — and could do it elsewhere, too.
The post Radioactivity May Fuel Life Deep Underground and Inside Other Worlds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The bizarre genome of the world’s most mysterious flowering plants shows how far parasites will go in stealing, deleting and duplicating DNA.
The post DNA of Giant ‘Corpse Flower’ Parasite Surprises Biologists first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New data indicating that Earth’s surface broke up about 3.2 billion years ago helps clarify how plate tectonics drove the evolution of complex life.
The post Scientists Pin Down When Earth’s Crust Cracked, Then Came to Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect.
The post A New Twist Reveals Superconductivity’s Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
To the surprise of experts in the field, a postdoctoral statistician has solved one of the most important problems in high-dimensional convex geometry.
The post Statistics Postdoc Tames Decades-Old Geometry Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems.
The post Mathematicians Set Numbers in Motion to Unlock Their Secrets first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The learning algorithm that enables the runaway success of deep neural networks doesn’t work in biological brains, but researchers are finding alternatives that could.
The post Artificial Neural Nets Finally Yield Clues to How Brains Learn first appeared on Quanta Magazine
By digging out signals hidden within the brain’s electrical chatter, scientists are getting new insights into sleep, aging and more.
The post Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Hold Clues to Persistent Mysteries first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Rumbles on Mars Raise Hopes of Underground Magma Flows
Long considered solved, David Hilbert’s question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections.
The post Mathematicians Resurrect Hilbert’s 13th Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Inside cells, droplets of biomolecules called condensates merge, divide and dissolve. Their dance may regulate vital processes.
The post A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Mistletoes have all but shut down the powerhouses of their cells. Scientists are still trying to understand the plants’ unorthodox survival strategy.
The post The Mystery of Mistletoe’s Missing Genes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the story of our galaxy.
The post The New History of the Milky Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.
The post Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information.
The post The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Recent experiments show that particles should be able to go faster than light when they quantum mechanically “tunnel” through walls.
The post Quantum Tunnels Show How Particles Can Break the Speed of Light first appeared on Quanta Magazine
After 44 years, there’s finally a better way to find approximate solutions to the notoriously difficult traveling salesperson problem.
The post Computer Scientists Break Traveling Salesperson Record first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Research hints that the energy-generating organelles of cells may play a surprisingly pivotal role in mediating anxiety and depression.
The post Mitochondria May Hold Keys to Anxiety and Mental Health first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery.
The post The Hidden Magnetic Universe Begins to Come Into View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway.
The post Graduate Student Solves Decades-Old Conway Knot Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Grand Unified Theory of Rogue Waves
The dendritic arms of some human neurons can perform logic operations that once seemed to require whole neural networks.
The post Hidden Computational Power Found in the Arms of Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in math.
The post Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A tool known as BERT can now beat humans on advanced reading-comprehension tests. But it's also revealed how far AI has to go.
The post Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.
The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A brain circuit that suppresses distracting sensory information holds important clues about attention and other cognitive processes.
The post To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways.
The post Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Modeling suggests that many embryonic cells commit to a developmental fate when they become too small to divide unevenly anymore.
The post For Embryo’s Cells, Size Can Determine Fate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors.
The post Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there.
The post Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Mathematicians have proved that a random process applied to a random surface will yield consistent patterns.
The post Random Surfaces Hide an Intricate Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine
To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes.
The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers struggle to incorporate ongoing evolutionary discoveries into an animal classification scheme older than Darwin.
The post What’s in a Name? Taxonomy Problems Vex Biologists first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved.
The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Surviving fragments of genetic material preserved in sediments allow scientists to see the full diversity of past life — even microbes.
The post Ancient DNA Yields Snapshots of Vanished Ecosystems first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement.
The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain.
In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed banks” protect biodiversity from changing conditions.
The post Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In a world seemingly filled with chaos, physicists have discovered new forms of synchronization and are learning how to predict and control them.
The post Scientists Discover Exotic New Patterns of Synchronization first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof.
The post Cryptography That Is Provably Secure first appeared on Quanta Magazine
During development, cells seem to decode their fate through optimal information processing, which could hint at a more general principle of life.
The post The Math That Tells Cells What They Are first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated?
The post How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century.
The post A World Without Clouds first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.
The post How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Neural networks can be as unpredictable as they are powerful. Now mathematicians are beginning to reveal how a neural network’s form will influence its function.
The post Foundations Built for a General Theory of Neural Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition.
The post The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting information are superior to classical ones.
The post Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand evolutionary dynamics in biological and computational systems.
The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Simple physical principles can be used to describe how rivers grow everywhere from Florida to Mars.
The post A Universal Law for the ‘Blood of the Earth’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine
How does evolution select the fittest “individuals” when they are ecosystems made up of hosts and their microbiomes? Biologist debate the need to revise theories.
The post Should Evolution Treat Our Microbes as Part of Us? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Through exacting geometric calculations, Philip Gibbs has found the smallest known cover for any possible shape.
The post Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Using a new CRISPR-based technique, researchers are examining how the position of DNA within the nucleus affects gene expression and cell function.
The post In the Nucleus, Genes’ Activity Might Depend on Their Location first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A visual prank exposes an Achilles’ heel of computer vision systems: Unlike humans, they can’t do a double take.
The post Machine Learning Confronts the Elephant in the Room first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including subtle motions that betray what’s being said and faint images of what’s around a corner.
The post The New Science of Seeing Around Corners first appeared on Quanta Magazine
18-year-old Ewin Tang has proven that classical computers can solve the “recommendation problem” nearly as fast as quantum computers. The result eliminates one of the best examples of quantum speedup.
The post Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. After nearly a century of study, a possible explanation is crystallizing.
The post A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A quickly closed loophole has proved that the “great smoky dragon” of quantum mechanics may forever elude capture.
The post Closed Loophole Confirms the Unreality of the Quantum World first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers find evidence that neural systems actively remove memories, suggesting that forgetting may be the default mode of the brain.
The post To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.”
The post The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations.
The post To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve
Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life
Researchers find that when working memory gets overburdened, dialogue between three brain regions breaks down. The discovery provides new support for a larger concept about how the brain works.
The post Overtaxed Working Memory Knocks the Brain Out of Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it.
The post A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy.
The post A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems.
The post Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos first appeared on Quanta Magazine
By making the first progress on the “chromatic number of the plane” problem in over 60 years, an anti-aging pundit has achieved mathematical immortality.
The post Decades-Old Graph Problem Yields to Amateur Mathematician first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Two teams of researchers have made significant progress toward proving the black hole stability conjecture, a critical mathematical test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
The post To Test Einstein’s Equations, Poke a Black Hole first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion.
The post Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.
The post Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Quanta Writers and Editors Discuss Trends in Science and Math
The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An idealized model of tumor growth offers a statistical solution.
The post Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues. first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Why Artificial Intelligence Like AlphaZero Has Trouble With the Real World
A new study challenges one of the most celebrated and controversial ideas in network science.
The post Scant Evidence of Power Laws Found in Real-World Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New algorithms show how swarms of very simple robots can be made to work together as a group.
The post Smart Swarms Seek New Ways to Cooperate first appeared on Quanta Magazine
How the Universe Got Its Bounce Back
Near an Australian desert mining camp, wild dingoes are losing their fear of humans. Their genetic and behavioral changes may echo those from the domestication of dogs.
The post A Domesticated Dingo? No, but Some Are Getting Less Wild first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A series of fossil finds suggests that life on Earth started earlier than anyone thought, calling into question a widely held theory of the solar system’s beginnings.
The post Fossil Discoveries Challenge Ideas About Earth’s Start first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Two mathematicians prove that under certain extreme conditions, the Navier-Stokes equations output nonsense.
The post Mathematicians Find Wrinkle in Famed Fluid Equations first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa’s lab is overturning old assumptions about how memories form, how recall works and whether lost memories might be restored from "silent engrams."
The post Light-Triggered Genes Reveal the Hidden Workings of Memory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An eminent mathematician reveals that his advances in the study of millennia-old mathematical questions owe to concepts derived from physics.
The post Secret Link Uncovered Between Pure Math and Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Kidneys sniff out signals from gut bacteria for cues to lower blood pressure after meals. Our understanding of how the symbiotic microbes affect health is becoming much more molecular.
The post How Bacteria Help Regulate Blood Pressure first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The oldest law of genetics says that gametes combine randomly, but experiments hint that sometimes eggs select sperm actively for their genetic assets.
The post Choosy Eggs May Pick Sperm for Their Genes, Defying Mendel’s Law first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.
The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine
To efficiently analyze a firehose of data, scientists first have to break big numbers into bits.
The post Best-Ever Algorithm Found for Huge Streams of Data first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Physicists theorize that a new “traversable” kind of wormhole could resolve a baffling paradox and rescue information that falls into black holes.
The post Newfound Wormhole Allows Information to Escape Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers are building a case that long before the nervous system works, the brain sends crucial bioelectric signals to guide the growth of embryonic tissues.
The post Brainless Embryos Suggest Bioelectricity Guides Growth first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn.
The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Computer scientists are finding ways to code curiosity into intelligent machines.
The post Clever Machines Learn How to Be Curious first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior of electrons — a mathematical discovery that could have immediate practical effects.
The post Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal species. Now conservationists are trying to reconcile that truth with policies.
The post Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine
What Made the Moon? New Ideas Try to Rescue a Troubled Theory
John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is often impossible to reach efficiently.
The post In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all convex polygons, that tile the plane.
The post Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine
If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.
The post Can Microbes Encourage Altruism? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A different kind of dark matter could help to resolve an old celestial conundrum.
The post Dark Matter Recipe Calls for One Part Superfluid first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A Puzzle of Clever Connections Nears a Happy End
Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head.
The post The Thoughts of a Spiderweb first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Powerful new quantitative tools are now available to combat partisan bias in the drawing of voting districts.
The post How to Quantify (and Fight) Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine
When a German retiree proved a famous long-standing mathematical conjecture, the response was underwhelming.
The post A Long-Sought Proof, Found and Almost Lost first appeared on Quanta Magazine
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry.
The post A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air.
The post Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
For centuries, mathematicians tried to solve problems by adding new values to the usual numbers. Now they’re investigating the unintended consequences of that tinkering.
The post New Number Systems Seek Their Lost Primes first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Powerful new experiments have uncovered some of the molecular underpinnings of sleep.
The post Researchers Tap a Sleep Switch in the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Physicists are closing the door on an intriguing loophole around the quantum phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”
The post Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
The post To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers have discovered that simple “chemically active” droplets grow to the size of cells and spontaneously divide, suggesting they might have evolved into the first living cells.
The post Dividing Droplets Could Explain Life’s Origin first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Is the brain a blank slate, or is it wired from birth to understand the world?
The post Infant Brains Reveal How the Mind Gets Built first appeared on Quanta Magazine
By folding fractals into 3-D objects, a mathematical duo hopes to gain new insight into simple equations.
The post 3-D Fractals Offer Clues to Complex Systems first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.
The post Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines?
The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings challenge the need for galaxies full of the invisible mystery particles.
The post The Case Against Dark Matter first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Can a fluid analogue of a black hole point physicists toward the theory of quantum gravity, or is it a red herring?
The post What Sonic Black Holes Say About Real Ones first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In a monumental set of experiments, spread out over nearly two decades, biologists removed genes two at a time to uncover the secret workings of the cell.
The post Giant Genetic Map Shows Life’s Hidden Links first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any number of people.
The post How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The surprising discovery of a massive, Milky Way–size galaxy that is made of 99.99 percent dark matter has astronomers dreaming up new ideas about how galaxies form.
The post Strange Dark Galaxy Puzzles Astrophysicists first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.
The post Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics.
The post Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Irrationality may be a consequence of the brain’s ravenous energy needs.
The post The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Physicists are confronting their “nightmare scenario.” What does the absence of new particles suggest about how nature works?
The post What No New Particles Means for Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass.
The post A Debate Over the Physics of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The bulk of biological research is centered on a handful of species. Are we missing a huge chunk of interesting biology?
The post Biologists Search for New Model Organisms first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A hint that neutrinos behave differently than antineutrinos suggests an answer to one the biggest questions in physics.
The post Neutrinos Hint of Matter-Antimatter Rift first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Scientists are exploring a mysterious pattern, found in birds’ eyes, boxes of marbles and other surprising places, that is neither regular nor random.
The post A Bird’s-Eye View of Nature’s Hidden Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Richard Feynman's famous diagrams weren’t just a way to do calculations. They represented a deep shift in thinking about how the universe is put together.
The post How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space first appeared on Quanta Magazine
At 28, Peter Scholze is uncovering deep connections between number theory and geometry.
The post The Oracle of Arithmetic first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such lifeforms might be more widespread than anyone anticipated.
The post New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new series of papers has settled a long-standing question related to the popular game in which players seek patterned sets of three cards.
The post Simple Set Game Proof Stuns Mathematicians first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Neanderthals and Denisovans may have endowed modern humans with genetic variants that helped them thrive in new environments.
The post How Neanderthal DNA Helps Humanity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that eliminates the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.
The post New Support for Alternative Quantum View first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A specific set of neurons deep in the brain may motivate us to seek company, holding social species together.
The post New Evidence for the Necessity of Loneliness first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Tiny Tests Seek the Universe’s Big Mysteries
A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell.
The post A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The story of the universe’s birth — and evidence for string theory — could be found in triangles and myriad other shapes in the sky.
The post Physicists Hunt for the Big Bang’s Triangles first appeared on Quanta Magazine
In the new, free-for-all era of dark matter research, the controversial idea that dark matter is concentrated in thin disks is being rescued from scientific oblivion.
The post Debate Intensifies Over Dark Disk Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A project to decipher the brain’s learning rules could revolutionize machine learning.
The post Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska has solved the centuries-old sphere-packing problem in dimensions eight and 24.
The post Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New insights from neuroscience — aided by a small zoo’s worth of dancing animals — are revealing the biological origins of rhythm.
The post The Beasts That Keep the Beat first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A previously unnoticed property of prime numbers seems to violate a long-standing assumption about how they behave.
The post Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The mathematician John Horton Conway’s myriad accomplishments — including the Game of Life, sprouts and the surreal numbers — are the product of a mind at play.
The post A Life in Games first appeared on Quanta Magazine
After Black Holes Collide, a Puzzling Flash
In a virtuoso experiment, physicists have revealed details of a “quantum critical point” that underlies high-temperature superconductivity.
The post The Quantum Secret to Superconductivity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Perhaps chemistry played a more instrumental role in the origin of life than scientists thought.
The post How to Build Life in a Pre-Darwinian World first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Ripples in space-time have been detected a century after Einstein predicted them, launching a new era in astronomy.
The post Gravitational Waves Discovered at Long Last first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Searching for signs of life on faraway planets, astrobiologists must decide which telltale biosignature gases to target.
The post Scientists Debate Signatures of Alien Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The same brain cells that track location in space appear to also count beats in time. The research suggests that our thoughts may take place on a mental space-time canvas.
The post New Clues to How the Brain Maps Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe.
The post Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Computer scientists are abuzz over a fast new algorithm for solving one of the central problems in the field.
The post Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new breakthrough that bridges number theory and geometry is just the latest triumph for a close-knit group of mathematicians.
The post Math Quartet Joins Forces on Unified Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine
The Incredible Shrinking Sex Chromosome
Scientists are homing in on a warning signal that arises in complex systems like ecological food webs, the brain and the Earth’s climate. Could it help prevent future catastrophes?
The post Nature’s Critical Warning System first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Scientists have begun to identify the symphony of biological triggers that powered the extraordinary expansion of the human brain.
The post How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Mongrel Microbe Tests Story of Complex Life
Complex natural systems defy analysis using a standard mathematical toolkit, so one ecologist is throwing out the equations.
The post A Twisted Path to Equation-Free Prediction first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Only a few genetic changes were enough to change an ordinary stomach bug into the bacteria responsible for the plague.
The post The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A major advance in computational complexity reveals deep connections between the classes of problems that computers can — and can’t — possibly do.
The post A New Map Traces the Limits of Computation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nima Arkani-Hamed is championing a campaign to build the world’s largest particle collider, even as he pursues a new vision of the laws of nature.
The post Visions of Future Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Cellular clocks are almost everywhere. Clues to how they work are coming from the places they’re not.
The post How the Body’s Trillions of Clocks Keep Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Einstein refused to believe in the inherent unpredictability of the world. Is the subatomic world insane, or just subtle?
The post Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A recent cryptographic breakthrough has proven difficult to put into practice. But new advances show how near-perfect computer security might be surprisingly close at hand.
The post A New Design for Cryptography’s Black Box first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new understanding of viral swarms is helping researchers predict how viruses will evolve and where disease is likely to spread.
The post How Mutant Viral Swarms Spread Disease first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Emerging data suggests the seemingly impossible — that mysterious new genes arise from “junk” DNA.
The post A Surprise Source of Life’s Code first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Did the minerals on our planet arise in a predictable fashion, or did they result from chance events? The answers could eventually help scientists identify planets likely to harbor life.
The post How Life and Luck Changed Earth’s Minerals first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A new technique for finding and characterizing microbes has boosted the number of known bacteria by almost 50 percent, revealing a hidden world all around us.
The post At Tiny Scales, a Giant Burst on Tree of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Scientists hope that new genetic letters, created in the lab, will endow DNA with new powers.
The post New Letters Added to the Genetic Alphabet first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Researchers are uncovering the hidden laws that reveal how the Internet grows, how viruses spread, and how financial bubbles burst.
The post The New Laws of Explosive Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine
‘Jumping Genes’ Are More Than Parasitic DNA
September 29, 202626min 37sec
You might imagine that the DNA in your cells has a simple history. But that’s not the entire story. Nearly half of your genome is a wild drama, thanks to a genetic material called transposons that can clip itself out of the DNA sequence, float off, and paste itself somewhere else. While these “jumping genes” may seem pathological, they’re more than just junk.
On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Hannah Waters speaks with writer Jake Buehler about these unruly genetic fragments and their connections to the evolution of everything from moths to wombs.
This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.
The audio coda this week is a piece of music called Transposon. It's a musical sonification of transposable elements from the human genome by composer and sound artist Sam Nester. He created it in collaboration with genomicist Stéphane Boissinot as part of a year-long artist-in-residence at the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi.
Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor-in-chief Samir Patel and Senior Editor Hannah Waters speak with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.