Artificial intelligence has bested humans at problem-solving challenges like chess and Go. Is mathematics research next? Steven Strogatz speaks with mathematician Kevin Buzzard to learn about the effort to translate math into language that computers understand. | Continue reading
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. | Continue reading
In recreational mathematics, the balance scale is an endless source of puzzles that require precise and elaborate logic and teach the fundamentals of generalization. | Continue reading
Intelligent beings learn by interacting with the world. Artificial intelligence researchers have adopted a similar strategy to teach their virtual agents new tricks. | Continue reading
A new proof identifies precisely how large a mathematical graph must be before it contains a regular substructure. | Continue reading
Quantum computers may derive their power from the “magical” way that properties of particles change depending on the context. | Continue reading
For decades mathematicians have searched for a specific pair of surfaces that can’t be transformed into each other in four-dimensional space. Now they’ve found them. | Continue reading
Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more. | Continue reading
Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts. | Continue reading
Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details. | Continue reading
Daniel Spielman solves important problems by thinking hard — about other questions. | Continue reading
Observations of faraway planets have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of how our solar system came to be. | Continue reading
Computer scientists can now solve a decades-old problem in practically the time it takes to write it down. | Continue reading
The lush biodiversity of the Amazon may be due in part to the dynamics of branching rivers, which serve as invisible fences that continuously barricade and merge bird populations. | Continue reading
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.” | Continue reading
Some animal neuropeptides have been around longer than nervous systems. | Continue reading
Using ideas borrowed from graph theory, two mathematicians have shown that extremely complex surfaces are easy to traverse. | Continue reading
The Langlands program provides a beautifully intricate set of connections between various areas of mathematics, pointing the way toward novel solutions for old problems. | Continue reading
Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors. | Continue reading
Four puzzle solutions reveal different ways to divine someone’s hidden number with impossibly little information. | Continue reading
RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome. | Continue reading
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. | Continue reading
A bit of information theory can help you analyze — and improve — your Wordle game. | Continue reading
New work shows that neurons and other brain cells use DNA double-strand breaks, often associated with cancer, neurodegeneration and aging, to quickly express genes related to learning and memory. | Continue reading
Synthetic biology experiments suggest a “MultiFate” model for how genetically identical cells become the many different types found in complex organisms like us. | Continue reading
Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do? | Continue reading
By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory. | Continue reading
Finding out whether a question is too difficult to ever solve efficiently depends on figuring out just how hard it is. Researchers have now shown how to do that for a major class of problems. | Continue reading
When researchers gave a genetic molecule the ability to replicate, it evolved over time into a complex network of “hosts” and “parasites” that both competed and cooperated to survive. | Continue reading
Mathematical magic can seem like mind reading. Your job is to reveal the secret behind these four tricks. | Continue reading
Einstein’s description of curved space-time doesn’t easily mesh with a universe made up of quantum wavefunctions. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll discusses the quest for quantum gravity with host Steven Strogatz. | Continue reading
Throwing out data seems to make measurements of distances and angles more precise. The reason why has been traced to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. | Continue reading
The famed Navier-Stokes equations can lead to cases where more than one result is possible, but only in an extremely narrow set of situations. | Continue reading
While it’s understandable to focus on the diseases affecting humans, it’s important to study how our illnesses may affect animals. | Continue reading
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. | Continue reading
Was the addition of mitochondria a first step in the formation of complex cells or one of the last? A new study of bacteria tries to answer this contentious question in evolutionary biology. | Continue reading
Two young mathematicians have astonished their colleagues with a full proof of the Kahn-Kalai conjecture — a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs. or | Continue reading
Van der Waerden’s conjecture mystified mathematicians for 85 years. Its solution shows how polynomial roots relate to one another. | Continue reading
The immune system protects us from a full spectrum of pathogens, but without balance, it can end up hurting us over time, too. The immunologist Shruti Naik explains how our defenses can turn on us. | Continue reading
Vijay Balasubramanian investigates whether the fabric of the universe might be built from information, and what it means that physicists can even ask such a question. | Continue reading
The Tonga eruption in January was “basically like Krakatoa 2.” This time, geophysicists could explain the tiny tsunamis that cropped up all over the planet, solving a 139-year-old mystery about Tonga’s predecessor. | Continue reading
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. | Continue reading
Life could use a more expansive genetic code in theory, but new work shows that improving on three-letter codons would be a challenge. | Continue reading
Learn the magic and math of how to win games when your opponent goes first. | Continue reading
A new analysis of W bosons suggests these particles are significantly heavier than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. | Continue reading
Steven Strogatz explores the mysteries of knots with the mathematicians Colin Adams and Lisa Piccirillo. | Continue reading
The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity. | Continue reading
The optical properties of mitochondrial bundles in the retina may improve how efficiently the eye captures light. | Continue reading