Quanta MagazineComputer Science A New Law to Describe Quantum Computing’s Rise?Quanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Neven’s law states that quantum computers are improving at a “doubly exponential” rate. If it holds, quantum supremacy is around the corner. In …
Quanta MagazineScience A Close Look at Newborn Planets Reveals Hints of Infant MoonsQuanta Magazine - Joshua Sokol Astronomers have discovered a complex planetary system still swirling into existence.
Quanta MagazineThe Brain Do Brains Operate at a Tipping Point? New Clues and ComplicationsQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood New experimental results simultaneously advance and challenge the theory that the brain’s network of neurons balances on the knife-edge between two …
Quanta MagazineScience Immune Cells Measure Time to Identify Foreign ProteinsQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Immunologists confirm an old hunch: T-cells identify what belongs in the body by timing how long they can bind to it. To mount a successful defense …
Quanta MagazineScience What’s the Magic Behind Graphene’s ‘Magic’ Angle?Quanta Magazine - David H. Freedman A new theoretical model may help explain the shocking onset of superconductivity in stacked, twisted carbon sheets. The blockbuster discovery last …
Quanta MagazineExoplanets As Planet Discoveries Pile Up, a Gap Appears in the PatternQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle Astronomers are puzzling over a paucity of planets in the galaxy measuring between 1.5 and two times Earth's size. After the sun formed, the dust and …
Quanta Magazine Rapid Oxygen Changes Fueled an Explosion in Ancient Animal DiversityQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Skyrocketing animal diversity a half-billion years ago was linked to spikes and dips in marine oxygen levels, according to a detailed geological …
Quanta MagazineDark Matter Dark Matter Gets a Reprieve in New AnalysisQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood A strange glow coming from the Milky Way’s center was thought to be due to ordinary pulsars. But a new look at a years-old study shows that dark …
Quanta Magazine Scientists Discover Nearly 200,000 Kinds of Ocean VirusesQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert New work raises the estimated diversity of viruses in the seas more than twelvefold and lays the groundwork for a better understanding of their …
Quanta Magazine A New Approach to Multiplication Opens the Door to Better Quantum ComputersQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett In practice, quantum computers can’t run many programs that classical computers can, because they’re not allowed to selectively forget information. A …
Quanta Magazine Viruses Have a Secret, Altruistic Social LifeQuanta Magazine - Viviane Callier Researchers are beginning to understand the ways in which viruses strategically manipulate and cooperate with one another. Social organisms come in …
Quanta Magazine In Quantum Games, There’s No Way to Play the OddsQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett These games combine quantum entanglement, infinity and impossible-to-calculate winning probabilities. But if researchers can crack them, they’ll …
Quanta Magazine Goals and Rewards Redraw the Brain’s Map of the WorldQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience. The iconic cover …
Quanta Magazine Sum-of-Three-Cubes Problem Solved for ‘Stubborn’ Number 33Quanta Magazine - John Pavlus A number theorist with programming prowess has found a solution to 33 = x³ + y³ + z³, a much-studied equation that went unsolved for 64 …
Quanta Magazine Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi ParadoxQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make it easy for civilizations to spread across the galaxy, but still we might find …
Quanta MagazineHiggs Boson The Physics Still Hiding in the Higgs BosonQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover No new particles have been found at the Large Hadron Collider since the Higgs boson in 2012, but physicists say there’s much we can still learn from …
Quanta Magazine Smarter Parts Make Collective Systems Too StubbornQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz As researchers delve deeper into the behavior of decentralized collective systems, they’re beginning to question some of their initial …
Quanta Magazine How Our Universe Could Emerge as a HologramQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover Physicists have devised a holographic model of “de Sitter space,” the term for a universe like ours, that could give us new clues about the origin of …
Quanta Magazine Smaller Is Better: Why Finite Number Systems Pack More PunchQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Recent progress on the “sum product” problem recalls a celebrated mathematical result that revealed the power of miniature number systems. It’s one …
Quanta Magazine Artificial Intelligence Finds Ancient ‘Ghosts’ in Modern DNAQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz With the help of deep learning techniques, paleoanthropologists find evidence of long-lost branches on the human family tree. Could deep learning help …
Quanta MagazineScience Why Evolution Reversed These Insects’ Sex OrgansQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz Among these cave insects, the females evolved to have penises — twice. The reasons challenge common assumptions about sex. Genitals are among the …
Quanta MagazineScience Gene Drives Work in Mice (if They’re Female)Quanta Magazine - John Rennie Biologists have demonstrated for the first time that a controversial genetic engineering technology works, with caveats, in mammals. Conservationists …
Quanta MagazineScience How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large AnimalsQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle A new study suggests that subatomic particles called muons streamed through the atmosphere and fatally irradiated megafauna like the monster shark …
Quanta MagazineJellyfish Jellyfish Genome Hints That Complexity Isn’t Genetically ComplexQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary leap in complexity. An overarching theme in the story of evolution, at least over the past …
Quanta MagazineAlan Turing Ancient Turing Pattern Builds Feathers, Hair — and Now, Shark SkinQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for …
Quanta Magazine Mathematicians Seal Back Door to Breaking RSA EncryptionQuanta Magazine - Kevin Hartnett Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work. My …
Quanta Magazine What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of LifeQuanta Magazine - Jonathan Lambert Neither animal, plant, fungus nor familiar protozoan, a strange microbe that sits in its own “supra-kingdom” of life foretells incredible …
Quanta MagazineBlack Holes Why Black Hole Interiors Grow (Almost) ForeverQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover The renowned physicist Leonard Susskind has identified a possible quantum origin for the ever-growing volume of black holes. Leonard Susskind, a …
Quanta Magazine What Defines a Stem Cell? Scientists Rethink the AnswerQuanta Magazine - Jordana Cepelewicz As it becomes clear that the body’s cells have more diverse regenerative capabilities than expected, experts have had to reconsider their approach to …
