Science Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNAQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Origin-of-life researchers have usually studied the potential of pure starting materials, but messy chemical composites may kick-start life more …
Galaxies Long-Lived Stellar Blast Kindles Hope of a Supernova We’ve Never Seen BeforeQuanta Magazine - Robin Andrews A giant star’s death throes may offer the first evidence of a pair-instability supernova, and a glimpse of the first stars in the universe. The early …
Protons Physicists Finally Nail the Proton’s Size, and Hope DiesQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover A new measurement appears to have eliminated an anomaly that had captivated physicists for nearly a decade. In 2010, physicists in Germany reported …
Biological Species New Hybrid Species Remix Old Genes Creatively | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Clues from fish diversity suggest that interbreeding between species could be a major mechanism of fast speciation.
Thermodynamics Are We All Wrong About Black Holes?Quanta Magazine - Brendan Z. Foster Craig Callender worries that the analogy between black holes and thermodynamics has been stretched too far. In the early 1970s, people studying …
Bacteria Bacterial Clones Show Surprising IndividualityQuanta Magazine - Carrie Arnold Genetically identical bacteria should all be the same, but in fact, the cells are stubbornly varied individuals. That heterogeneity may be an …
Science Strange Metal-like Bonds Discovered in Customized CrystalsQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam …
Black Holes Possible Detection of a Black Hole So Big It ‘Should Not Exist’Quanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover At stake are fundamental ideas about how black holes form — and a six-way bet. Black hole physicists have been excitedly discussing reports that the …
Fungi Soil’s Microbial Market Shows the Ruthless Side of ForestsQuanta Magazine - Gabriel Popkin In the “underground economy” for soil nutrients, fungi strike hard bargains and punish plants that won’t meet their price. Beneath the green vegetable …
Computer Science The Anthropologist of Artificial IntelligenceQuanta Magazine - John Pavlus The algorithms that underlie much of the modern world have grown so complex that we always can’t predict what they’ll do. Iyad Rahwan’s radical idea: …
Physics Ann Nelson Took On the Biggest Problems in PhysicsQuanta Magazine - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein The theoretical particle physicist Ann Nelson, who died on August 4 at age 61, was a font of brilliant ideas and a champion of ending discrimination …
The Brain A Mathematical Model Unlocks the Secrets of VisionQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Mathematicians and neuroscientists have created the first anatomically accurate model that explains how vision is possible. This is the great mystery …
Albert Einstein The Puzzling Search for Perfect RandomnessQuanta Magazine - Pradeep Mutalik Does objective, perfect randomness exist, or is randomness merely a product of our ignorance? Life is unpredictable, and random things happen to us …
Science Can New Species Evolve From Cancers? Maybe. Here’s How.Quanta Magazine - Christie Wilcox Researchers agree it’s a long shot, but transmissible cancers could theoretically evolve into independent species. Certain weird parasites might be …
Mathematics New Proof Settles How to Approximate Numbers Like PiQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett The ancient Greeks wondered when “irrational” numbers can be approximated by fractions. By proving the longstanding Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture, two …
Algebra Color Me PolynomialQuanta Magazine - Patrick Honner Polynomials aren’t just exercises in abstraction. They’re good at illuminating structure in surprising places. In 2015, the poet-turned-mathematician …
Divide For Embryo’s Cells, Size Can Determine FateQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz New research suggests that many embryonic cells commit to a developmental fate when they become too small to divide unevenly anymore. The developing …
Breakups Bubble Experiment Finds Universal LawsQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood Physicists have found examples of “universality” in a system of confined bubbles. The work could help researchers understand the strange behavior of …
Black Holes To Make Two Black Holes Collide, Try ThreeQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson How do black holes merge and make gravitational waves? Maybe with a little help from their friends. The spiraling dance of a pair of colliding black …
Science In Brain’s Electrical Ripples, Markers for Memories AppearQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Researchers found that elongating certain brain signals in rats improved their memory. The work revealed a new property to look out for in the hunt …
Physicists Peer Inside a Fireball of Quantum MatterQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood Experimenters in Germany have glimpsed the kind of strange, non-atomic matter thought to fill the cores of merging neutron stars. A gold wedding band …
Sun’s Puzzling Plasma Recreated in a LabQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson The twisting loops of the sun’s magnetic field control the flow of charged particles throughout the solar system. For the first time, researchers …
Science Sun’s Puzzling Plasma Recreated in a LaboratoryQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson The twisting loops of the sun’s magnetic field control the flow of charged particles throughout the solar system. For the first time, researchers …
Software Development Decades-Old Computer Science Conjecture Solved in Two PagesQuanta Magazine - Erica Klarreich The “sensitivity” conjecture stumped many top computer scientists, yet the new proof is so simple that one researcher summed it up in a single …
Big Black Holes Found in the Smallest GalaxiesQuanta Magazine - Ramin Skibba Tiny, dim “dwarf” galaxies have been found to hide gas-spewing black holes. Even little galaxies have enormous black holes. That’s the takeaway from a …
Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First TestsQuanta Magazine - Philip Ball Three experiments have vetted quantum Darwinism, a theory that explains how quantum possibilities can give rise to objective, classical reality. It’s …
Quantum Supremacy Is Coming: Here’s What You Should KnowQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Researchers are getting close to building a quantum computer that can perform tasks a classical computer can’t. Here’s what the milestone will …
Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First AnimalsQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors. Subsequent …
Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there. Those stones are …
How (Relatively) Simple Symmetries Underlie Our Expanding UniverseQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover Although Einstein’s theory of space-time seems more complicated than Newtonian physics, it greatly simplified the mathematical description of the …
