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2026-10-15 13:42:46 GMT

How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?
People may think of soil as just dirt, but it is anything but inert. Beneath your feet, a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi is hard at work, trading minerals with plant roots. This trading system helps enrich the soil, and it sequesters 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide each year — roughly equivalent to one-third of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions. Scientists know that these fungi…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-do-fungi-keep-the-planet-healthy-20261015/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-do-fungi-keep-the-planet-healthy-20261015/

2026-10-12 14:22:04 GMT

Is ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence?
Everything that’s swept the world since the 2022 release of ChatGPT — “the AI economy”; data centers; chatbots acting as best friends, doctors, and mathematicians; talk of existential risk — it all starts, in some sense, with an intern in a University of Montreal lab named Dzmitry Bahdanau. It was 2014. The 23-year-old Belarusian, who had been coding competitively since he was a kid but hadn’t…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-attention-the-essence-of-intelligence-20261012/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-attention-the-essence-of-intelligence-20261012/

2026-10-09 14:04:46 GMT

How Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own.
By the middle of the 20th century, it had begun to seem that biology was almost solved. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection explained how organisms change and adapt. The modern science of genetics showed how it works at the molecular scale. Genes governing the traits of organisms get passed down from parent to offspring, and random mutations create the variations from which…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-does-life-unfold-a-landscape-metaphor-comes-into-its-own-20261009/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-does-life-unfold-a-landscape-metaphor-comes-into-its-own-20261009/

2026-10-07 15:09:24 GMT

As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
On the morning of September 11, 2026, Dor Minzer received a text message from a friend asking whether he was close to settling one of the most famous open questions in theoretical computer science. Minzer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leading expert on the “unique games” conjecture, initially thought it was a joke. Then more messages started coming in…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/as-ai-closed-in-on-unique-games-proof-researchers-raced-to-beat-the-machines-20261007/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/as-ai-closed-in-on-unique-games-proof-researchers-raced-to-beat-the-machines-20261007/

2026-10-05 13:41:39 GMT

Is AI the End of Math As We Know It?
Throughout the summer of 2026, there were plenty of signs of what was to come. Every week, it seemed, artificial intelligence models were offering proofs of decades-old mathematical conjectures. So what happened on September 8 shouldn’t have been a complete surprise. And yet to many it felt sudden, almost violent. OpenAI announced that its models had solved one of math’s most famous problems — and…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-the-end-of-math-as-we-know-it-20261005/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-ai-the-end-of-math-as-we-know-it-20261005/

2026-10-02 14:46:31 GMT

Sea Monkeys Show Scientists How To Rewrite a Rule of Turbulence
In the 1960s and ’70s, colorful comic book advertisements from the Transcience Corporation in New York City promised to mail anyone who sent cash, check, or money order a “bowlfull of happiness” — in reality, a small paper envelope of freeze-dried eggs. Dropped into salt water, the eggs would produce brine shrimp, also known as sea monkeys. Brine shrimp are about a centimeter long and swim…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/sea-monkeys-show-scientists-how-to-rewrite-a-rule-of-turbulence-20261002/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/sea-monkeys-show-scientists-how-to-rewrite-a-rule-of-turbulence-20261002/

2026-08-28 13:32:38 GMT

Does Computer Science Need Computers?
The pioneering computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra, winner of the 1972 A.M. Turing Award and inventor of one of the most iconic algorithms in all of computing, was nothing if not opinionated. Certain programming languages drew his ire, for example: He once dubbed Fortran “the infantile disorder” and stated that “the use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-computer-science-need-computers-20260828/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/does-computer-science-need-computers-20260828/

2026-08-21 14:54:52 GMT

‘Huge Breakthrough’ in the Math of Imbalance
One does not need a doctorate in mathematics to split 12 eager trivia buffs into two competitive teams. But consider that each person arrives with unique strengths and liabilities: One may be a geography obsessive with no ear for music, another could be a naturalist who doesn’t own a television, and another could be a cinephile who never reads. Balancing traits between two camps becomes a lot…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/huge-breakthrough-in-the-math-of-imbalance-20260821/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/huge-breakthrough-in-the-math-of-imbalance-20260821/

2026-08-20 14:05:40 GMT

Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence?
When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need to supervise it, and ultimately what its real-world impact will turn out to be. Melanie Mitchell at the Santa Fe Institute argues that we lack adequate methods for measuring machine…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-we-thinking-correctly-about-ai-intelligence-20260820/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-we-thinking-correctly-about-ai-intelligence-20260820/

2026-08-19 14:18:06 GMT

Building a Quantum Computer, One Fragile Qubit at a Time
Practically all modern computers, from the cheap microcontroller in your dishwasher to high-tech hardware crunching numbers for artificial intelligence systems, rely on versions of the same technology: slabs of silicon patterned with microscopic structures called transistors. Electronic circuits containing transistors can rapidly and reliably toggle between two states, usually labeled “0” and “1.”…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/building-a-quantum-computer-one-fragile-qubit-at-a-time-20260819/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/building-a-quantum-computer-one-fragile-qubit-at-a-time-20260819/

2026-08-17 15:12:12 GMT

Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century
In the second half of the 20th century, a conceptual tsunami swept through physics. The discovery that our world emerges from a microscopic world of molecules, which emerges from an even more microscopic world of subatomic particles (which in turn emerges from even stranger stuff) triggered the rewriting of our theories of matter. But the revolution didn’t reach fluids.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/theory-of-fluids-enters-the-21st-century-20260817/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/theory-of-fluids-enters-the-21st-century-20260817/

2026-08-14 13:13:36 GMT

Why Aging May Be a Program, Not a Breakdown
In some ways, we know aging when we see it, from the graying of hair to the wrinkling of skin to declines in motor, sensory, and cognitive capacities. Yet the underlying biology of aging remains a matter of uncertainty and debate. Many lines of research align with the theory that aging is a direct result of decay — the inevitable degradation of molecules (including proteins or DNA), organelles…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-aging-may-be-a-program-not-a-breakdown-20260814/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-aging-may-be-a-program-not-a-breakdown-20260814/

2026-08-12 14:15:39 GMT

Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals
At the quantum scale, tiny particles behave in bizarre ways. One reason for this is the uncertainty principle, which says that the more you know about where a quantum particle is, the less you can know about how fast it’s moving, and vice versa. Recently, this rule got a rare upgrade. The new uncertainty principle relates to fractals, shapes that remain equally complex no matter how much you…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/graduate-student-proves-the-fractal-uncertainty-principle-20260812/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/graduate-student-proves-the-fractal-uncertainty-principle-20260812/

2026-08-10 14:57:15 GMT

Why Are Rivers So Mathematical?
A river has my heart. It’s not the austere, black Thames winding through London, where I was born, but a lazy green one 5,000 miles away, where I spent my adolescence: the Blanco River in Texas. My maternal ancestors have dipped into its waters for generations, as I have on countless summer days. The Blanco is a tributary of the San Marcos, which flows into the Guadalupe, and on into the Gulf of…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-rivers-so-mathematical-20260810/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-are-rivers-so-mathematical-20260810/

2026-08-07 13:58:05 GMT

Neutrinos From Deep Inside Earth Provide a New Picture of the Mantle
In a laboratory 2 kilometers underground, a crane lowers Matt Depatie, a detector technologist, through a hatch into a white-walled cavern filled with about 7,000 tons of ultrapure water that glows as blue as wiper fluid in the light. “Splashdown,” Depatie says over a radio as he steps into an inflatable raft waiting below. Normally, the cavern is one of the darkest places on Earth, but today…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrinos-from-deep-inside-earth-provide-a-new-picture-of-the-mantle-20260807/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/neutrinos-from-deep-inside-earth-provide-a-new-picture-of-the-mantle-20260807/

2026-08-06 20:43:50 GMT

How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?
Pain and pleasure seem like simple facts of life, however they are anything but that. Neuroscientists still cannot say why physical pain differs from psychological pain, for instance, or why a loved one’s touch soothes while a stranger’s touch repels. To explore the science behind these sensations, Janna Levin talked to Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, a neuroscientist at Columbia University’s Zuckerman…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-does-touch-lead-to-pain-or-pleasure-20260806/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-does-touch-lead-to-pain-or-pleasure-20260806/

2026-07-23 14:55:20 GMT

How Fast Is the Universe Really Expanding?
One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology seems to keep getting bigger. Astronomers have known since the 1930s that the universe is expanding, but in the 1990s, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating rather than slowing down came as a huge shock to the field. Something had to be driving that acceleration, and dark energy was proposed as the cause. What began as a seismic shock in…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-fast-is-the-universe-really-expanding-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-fast-is-the-universe-really-expanding-20260723/

2026-07-23 14:24:38 GMT

Fields and Abacus Medals 2026
Every four years, the math world’s preeminent awards are given to the finest minds of a generation. The young winners — all under 40 on the first day of the year — have reshaped mathematics and theoretical computer science. Here are their stories.
The post [Fields and Abacus Medals 2026][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/fields-and-abacus-medals-2026-20260723/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/fields-and-abacus-medals-2026-20260723/

2026-07-23 14:24:33 GMT

A Master of the Traveling Salesperson Problem Finds His Own Path
In theoretical computer science, the key to cracking tough problems is finding the right tools. Most researchers gravitate toward tools that match the problems they hope to solve, and some devote entire careers to mastering a few familiar techniques. But Shayan Oveis Gharan, a computer scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, has never been content with the familiar.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/shayan-oveis-gharan-wins-2026-imu-abacus-medal-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/shayan-oveis-gharan-wins-2026-imu-abacus-medal-20260723/

2026-07-23 13:56:49 GMT

Sometimes Being First Means Seeing the End Before Anyone Else
Jacob Tsimerman knows that many people see mathematics as a search for beauty. Over the course of his career, he has encountered beauty many times. But beauty is not what drives him. What he loves most is to solve hard problems, and to be the first to do so. “In my experience, and I think many people’s experience, math is very much a goal-oriented endeavor,” he said. “The truth-and-beauty stuff…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/jacob-tsimerman-wins-2026-fields-medal-for-andre-oort-conjecture-proof-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/jacob-tsimerman-wins-2026-fields-medal-for-andre-oort-conjecture-proof-20260723/

2026-07-23 13:56:44 GMT

Living Fully in the Math World Means Threading the Needle
One might imagine that, for a mathematician, proving a monumental theorem is a blissful experience. It wasn’t so for Hong Wang. In February 2025, Wang and her collaborator Joshua Zahl presented a 127-page proof of a long-standing conjecture at the intersection of multiple branches of math. The duo had been checking their work for months and had sent it to select colleagues for review before…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wins-2026-fields-medal-the-third-woman-ever-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/hong-wang-wins-2026-fields-medal-the-third-woman-ever-20260723/

2026-07-23 13:45:27 GMT

Amid Life’s Chaos, a Meticulous Mathematician Finds Stability
Freedom and restraint seem like opposing forces, but to Yu Deng, they go hand in hand. Take the poem he’s just pulled up on his computer screen: a dense forest of Chinese characters corralled into eight lines of equal length — a perfect, symmetric block of text. Written in the ninth century by the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shangyin, as China teetered on the brink of civil war, “The Brocade Zither” is…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/yu-deng-wins-the-fields-medal-2026-for-his-work-on-the-random-data-problem-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/yu-deng-wins-the-fields-medal-2026-for-his-work-on-the-random-data-problem-20260723/

2026-07-23 13:45:21 GMT

The Quietest Mathematician Has Always Been Worth Listening To
Several eminent mathematicians tell different versions of the same story about John Pardon. Fifteen years ago, János Kollár was seated next to Pardon at a Phi Beta Kappa dinner. Kollár held an endowed chair as a full professor at Princeton University, where he’d been teaching for over a decade after stints at the University of Utah and at Harvard University as a member of its Society of Fellows…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/john-pardon-wins-the-2026-fields-medal-for-work-in-symplectic-geometry-20260723/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/john-pardon-wins-the-2026-fields-medal-for-work-in-symplectic-geometry-20260723/

2026-07-20 15:04:49 GMT

The Organisms That Make Earth’s Harshest Places Home
Life has scarcely found a boundary on Earth that it can’t push. While much of life’s diversity exists in lush, bountiful habitats like tropical rainforests and coral reefs, even the most brutal corners of the planet are also occupied. The organisms that thrive in extreme environments — blistering temperatures, crushing pressures, corrosive acid — are what we call “extremophiles.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-organisms-that-make-earths-harshest-places-home-20260720/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-organisms-that-make-earths-harshest-places-home-20260720/

2026-07-17 14:32:28 GMT

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind
It was 9 a.m. on a Thursday, and Martin Picard was watching his blood flow from an IV in his arm through a hole in the wall. He was sitting on a twin bed in a claustrophobic chamber less than a shoulder’s width from a stainless steel sink and porcelain toilet. Every hour over 24 hours, including while he slept, a nurse channeled blood from his arm to a research team next door; at each time point…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/martin-picards-mitochondrial-theory-of-mind-20260717/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/martin-picards-mitochondrial-theory-of-mind-20260717/

2026-07-15 22:01:48 GMT

Thermodynamic Computers Go With the (Energy) Flow
In the quest to make computers accurate and reliable, noise is the enemy. The thermal jiggling of atoms is a constant threat to the precision needed for detailed calculations. Whether we’re dealing with familiar classical devices like the laptops or supercomputers that we use today, or fancy quantum devices that promise us faster computation tomorrow, we don’t want some haphazard heat fluctuation…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/thermodynamic-computers-go-with-the-energy-flow-20260715/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/thermodynamic-computers-go-with-the-energy-flow-20260715/

2026-07-10 14:53:39 GMT

We Know Simple Fluids Can Flow. Turns Out, Some Can Fracture.
Thamires Lima, a research professor in chemical engineering at Drexel University, studies the properties of thick, viscous liquids — think honey or molasses, though in a lab you’re more likely to find polypropylene or crude oil. Using a method called extensional rheology, Lima stretches liquids between metal plates to find the force that makes them flow. A few years ago, she was conducting a…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/we-know-simple-fluids-can-flow-turns-out-some-can-fracture-20260710/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/we-know-simple-fluids-can-flow-turns-out-some-can-fracture-20260710/

2026-07-09 13:40:49 GMT

Will We Ever Find Alien Civilizations?
Does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe? The question has captivated us for centuries, but despite decades of searching it remains frustratingly unanswered. Every so often a curious signal appears — fossilized structures in a meteorite, say, or an unusual gas in an exoplanet’s atmosphere — and for a moment it seems possible that we are not alone before the excitement gives way to a…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/will-we-ever-find-alien-civilizations-20260709/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/will-we-ever-find-alien-civilizations-20260709/

2026-07-08 14:23:07 GMT

Is Life Just Different?
In 1993, a team led by the planetary scientist Carl Sagan tentatively concluded that there is life on Earth. Not much of a deduction, you might think — except that the researchers confined their evidence to observations made by the Galileo spacecraft, which had flown past our planet three years earlier on a looping journey to Jupiter. So great is the transformative power of life that its presence…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-life-just-different-20260708/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-life-just-different-20260708/

2026-07-06 14:34:21 GMT

Researchers Reveal the Power of ‘Quantum Proofs’
More than 30 years ago, researchers discovered that hypothetical computers based on the laws of quantum physics would be able to rapidly solve difficult math problems. Ever since then, they’ve sought to pinpoint cases where quantum computers are more powerful than their ordinary “classical” cousins. For nearly as long, a small band of computer scientists has pursued a related question that gets…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-reveal-the-power-of-quantum-proofs-20260706/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/researchers-reveal-the-power-of-quantum-proofs-20260706/

2026-07-02 14:58:48 GMT

Astrophysicists Puzzle Over Webb’s New Universe
When Charlotte Mason ponders cosmic mysteries, she likes to doodle. “I am quite a visual person,” she said. “I usually draw a lot of pictures trying to understand what’s going on.” Mason, an astrophysicist at the Cosmic Dawn Center in Copenhagen, has lately been filling pages with sketches of “little red dots,” perplexing objects discovered by the hundreds in images from the James Webb Space…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-puzzle-over-webbs-new-universe-20260702/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/astrophysicists-puzzle-over-webbs-new-universe-20260702/

2026-07-01 14:03:46 GMT

For the First Time, a Cell Built From Scratch Grows and Divides
For the very first time, biologists packed nonliving components into a cell-like membrane, piece by piece, and witnessed the bag of molecules start to behave like life. The lab-made synthetic cell grew, replicated its DNA, and divided, demonstrating the basic functions of a cell cycle. It’s “an impressive step,” said Jack Szostak, who studies the origins of life at the University of Chicago and…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-first-time-a-cell-built-from-scratch-grows-and-divides-20260701/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/for-the-first-time-a-cell-built-from-scratch-grows-and-divides-20260701/

2026-06-29 14:04:35 GMT

What Breaks a Cell’s Ribs Can Make It Stronger
The cells of animals, plants, and fungi start their lives by being torn apart. Cells are born by division, and just before a parent cell becomes two daughters, it doubles its nuclear DNA and carefully condenses it into X-shaped chromosomes. The nucleus disassembles, letting these crucial genetic instructions float free in the cell’s soupy interior. Then the cell performs an astounding…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-breaks-a-cells-ribs-can-make-it-stronger-20260629/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-breaks-a-cells-ribs-can-make-it-stronger-20260629/

2026-06-26 15:26:51 GMT

After 80 Years, Mathematicians Give Famed ‘Erdős Method’ an Upgrade
In 1947, Paul Erdős, the itinerant Hungarian mathematician, introduced what would become one of math’s most powerful tools. He wanted to prove that a certain kind of object existed — in this case, a network made of interconnected nodes. But strangely, his proof didn’t specify how to build it. Instead, he showed that if you consider all networks and select one at random, the chances that you’ll…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/after-80-years-mathematicians-give-famed-erdos-method-an-upgrade-20260626/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/after-80-years-mathematicians-give-famed-erdos-method-an-upgrade-20260626/

2026-06-24 16:05:20 GMT

How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino
Seventy years ago, the physicists Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines took a custom-built 10-ton detector, surrounded it with thick lead walls and wet sandbags, and placed it near a powerful nuclear reactor at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. They called the experiment “Project Poltergeist,” designed as it was to catch a ghost. More than a quarter of a century before…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-physicists-track-and-trap-the-elusive-neutrino-20260624/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-physicists-track-and-trap-the-elusive-neutrino-20260624/

2026-06-22 14:54:28 GMT

A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great Unknowns
For those who see the world as a dark place, the universe seems to offer little solace. According to current estimates, approximately 70% of the stuff that makes up the cosmos consists of dark energy, an unknown force that pushes space to expand. And another 25% consists of dark matter, a mysterious material that holds galaxies together. But semantically speaking, dark energy and dark matter are…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-dark-dimension-could-link-two-of-the-universes-great-unknowns-20260622/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-dark-dimension-could-link-two-of-the-universes-great-unknowns-20260622/

2026-06-18 14:14:11 GMT

Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AI
Since its molecular structure was deduced in the 1950s, DNA has been hailed by many biologists as the secret of life. They’ve read and studied the information stored in the DNA found in the cells of living organisms, known as their genomes, and claimed that this genetic database must be some kind of blueprint, code script, or computer. But if DNA really does harbor some greater secret about how…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-genomes-complexity-may-confound-alphagenome-and-other-ais-20260618/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-genomes-complexity-may-confound-alphagenome-and-other-ais-20260618/

2026-06-17 14:37:21 GMT

Seven Perfect Shuffles Randomize a Deck of Cards. But How Many Sloppy Ones?
In 1992, mathematicians famously proved that seven “riffle shuffles” — the kind where a player splits a deck of cards into two piles, then uses their thumbs to interleave them back together in a zipperlike motion — are enough to mix up the deck. When Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis came up with this proof, they also revealed something surprising about what happens along the way: At first…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/seven-perfect-shuffles-randomize-a-deck-of-cards-but-how-many-sloppy-ones-20260617/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/seven-perfect-shuffles-randomize-a-deck-of-cards-but-how-many-sloppy-ones-20260617/

2026-06-12 14:05:25 GMT

Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself.
At this moment, a spacecraft is headed from Earth to Europa, an ice-veiled moon of Jupiter thought to contain an ocean similar in some ways to one of our own. NASA engraved a metal plate affixed to the spacecraft with a poem, commissioned from Ada Limón during her time as poet laureate of the United States. It reads, in part: And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-did-earth-get-its-oceans-maybe-it-made-them-itself-20260612/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-did-earth-get-its-oceans-maybe-it-made-them-itself-20260612/

2026-06-11 13:40:18 GMT

What’s the Future of Gene Editing?
One of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries in recent scientific history has been CRISPR. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a form of immune system that evolved in bacteria more than a billion years ago to defend against persistent viral threats. Under attack, bacteria can snip a small fragment of a virus’s DNA, store it in the CRISPR region…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/whats-the-future-of-gene-editing-20260611/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/whats-the-future-of-gene-editing-20260611/

2026-06-10 15:00:02 GMT

An Early Step on the Long, Strange Road to Photosynthesis
Every second, trillions of watts of solar energy — more than 10,000 times the energy used by modern humans — blast the Earth’s surface. Around 2.4 billion years ago, life took an evolutionary leap when bacteria learned to harness these photons to break apart water molecules and stitch carbon atoms into sugars. Along the way, they flooded Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen and rewrote the rules of life.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/an-early-step-on-the-long-strange-road-to-photosynthesis-20260610/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/an-early-step-on-the-long-strange-road-to-photosynthesis-20260610/

2026-06-08 15:19:20 GMT

How Terry Tao Became an Evangelist for AI in Math
The following has been adapted from The Proof in the Code: How a Truth Machine Is Transforming Math and AI by Kevin Hartnett. Terry Tao has never been afraid of unconventional ideas. In November 2014, he was on a panel of five distinguished mathematicians, all inaugural recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, which came with a $3 million award. The laureates’ conversation ranged…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-terry-tao-became-an-evangelist-for-ai-in-math-20260608/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-terry-tao-became-an-evangelist-for-ai-in-math-20260608/

2026-06-05 14:22:05 GMT

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible?
I t was the dead of winter in Boston. The surface of the Charles River was frozen solid. But Zachary Kelso braved the biting cold to finally put to rest a mystery that has haunted neuroscience labs for over half a century. To do that, Kelso, a research assistant in the Harvard lab of the neuroscientist Sam Gershman, needed some worms. Specifically, planarians: arrow-headed flatworms…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories-transferable-or-edible-20260605/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-memories-transferable-or-edible-20260605/

2026-06-04 14:15:29 GMT

More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’
What is the future of gene editing with CRISPR? Has AI changed mathematics forever? Will we find other civilizations in the universe? What if we’ve been wrong about dark energy all along? These are just a few of the big, bold questions we’ll be exploring in the new season of The Joy of Why. Mathematician Steven Strogatz and physicist Janna Levin are back as your hosts for these and other…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/more-conversations-complex-questions-and-bold-ideas-in-season-five-of-the-joy-of-why-20260604/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/more-conversations-complex-questions-and-bold-ideas-in-season-five-of-the-joy-of-why-20260604/

2026-06-03 14:35:50 GMT

Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now “Magic” Gives It Gravity.
In 1973, John Archibald Wheeler described the relationship between space and matter in two sentences: “Space acts on matter, telling it how to move. In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve.” Wheeler’s words serve as a pithy encapsulation of general relativity, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. Wheeler’s sentences also lay out a challenge that theorists face today: When…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-builds-space-time-now-magic-gives-it-gravity-20260603/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/entanglement-builds-space-time-now-magic-gives-it-gravity-20260603/

2026-06-01 14:45:21 GMT

The Dirt That Refused To Die
For 15 years, Sébastien Fontaine has been trying to kill dirt. The biochemist, who runs a lab at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, wanted to know how much carbon is released by soil — just dirt alone, completely devoid of life. His team sealed dirt into jars and blasted them with sterilizing gamma radiation. Then they waited for the carbon dioxide released by…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-dirt-that-refused-to-die-20260601/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-dirt-that-refused-to-die-20260601/

2026-05-29 13:55:12 GMT

Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required
What Garnet Chan cares most about is basic science. He entered chemistry decades ago to understand some of the most consequential biochemical processes on Earth. But since then, he’s become a central figure in a different arena: the debate over whether quantum computers will have a decisive advantage over ordinary “classical” ones. Over the past decade, many quantum computing researchers have…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/key-chemistry-question-answered-no-quantum-computer-required-20260529/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/key-chemistry-question-answered-no-quantum-computer-required-20260529/

2026-05-28 14:18:32 GMT

How We See the Beautiful, Violent Sun
The sun is one of the most studied objects in the history of science. The ancient Babylonians and Chinese tracked sunspots and solar eclipses, etching their observations into clay tablets; these records would outlast their civilizations. When the telescope arrived in the early 1600s, astronomers such as Galileo Galilei, Christoph Scheiner, and Johannes Fabricius turned these instruments toward…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-see-the-beautiful-violent-sun-20260528/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-see-the-beautiful-violent-sun-20260528/

2026-05-26 15:31:20 GMT

When Quiet Undersea Volcanoes Turn Disruptive
Jonas Preine, a recently minted Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, squinted at a computer screen in the lab of a ship as it bobbed in the North Atlantic near Iceland. The image before him just didn’t make sense. It was June 2024, and Preine was among a crew of scientists who had set off from Reykjavik under slate-colored skies, trading their regular lives — family, friends…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-quiet-undersea-volcanoes-turn-disruptive-20260526/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-quiet-undersea-volcanoes-turn-disruptive-20260526/

2026-05-20 14:53:51 GMT

How Alexander Grothendieck Revolutionized 20th-Century Mathematics
What Albert Einstein was to 20th-century physics, Alexander Grothendieck was to 20th-century mathematics. He is much less well known because math gets technical even more quickly than physics does. But as with Einstein, Grothendieck’s impact came not just from his own results, revolutionary though they were. His work also reoriented his entire discipline in radical new directions.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-alexander-grothendieck-revolutionized-20th-century-mathematics-20260520/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-alexander-grothendieck-revolutionized-20th-century-mathematics-20260520/

2026-05-20 14:53:46 GMT

Two Researchers Are Rebuilding Mathematics From the Ground Up
Let’s start with what’s probably the most tired, overused joke in math: A topologist is someone who can’t tell a coffee cup from a doughnut. Both, you see, have a hole in them. Topology is usually described as a sort of “rubber sheet” geometry in which two shapes are considered the same if one can be stretched or compressed into the other without tearing it. But this summary leaves out something…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-researchers-are-rebuilding-mathematics-from-the-ground-up-20260520/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-researchers-are-rebuilding-mathematics-from-the-ground-up-20260520/

2026-05-15 13:51:52 GMT

Rubin Tracks Skyscraper-Size Asteroids, Failed Supernovas, and Interstellar Visitors
Over the years, anticipation has built for the start of observations at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the mountains of the Atacama Desert in Chile. Originally imagined in the mid-1990s as the Dark Matter Telescope, Rubin is designed to study our constantly moving and changing universe in greater detail than ever before. Once every few days for a decade, Rubin will take images of the entire…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/rubin-tracks-skyscraper-size-asteroids-failed-supernovas-and-interstellar-visitors-20260515/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/rubin-tracks-skyscraper-size-asteroids-failed-supernovas-and-interstellar-visitors-20260515/

2026-05-13 14:07:44 GMT

How the Bird Eye Was Pushed to an Evolutionary Extreme
When an optometrist shines a bright light into your eyes, a vast, branching tree sprouts in your field of vision. This is the shadow of blood vessels. Though we normally can’t perceive them, these vessels always occlude a portion of what we see, and for an important reason. They power the retina, a thin layer of nerve tissue in the back of the eye that communicates light signals to the brain.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-bird-eye-was-pushed-to-an-evolutionary-extreme-20260513/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-bird-eye-was-pushed-to-an-evolutionary-extreme-20260513/

2026-05-11 14:16:19 GMT

How Unknowable Math Can Help Hide Secrets
Mathematicians spend most of their time thinking about what’s knowable. But the unknowable can be just as compelling. Perhaps the most famous example comes from a theorem by the logician Kurt Gödel. Gödel’s celebrated result — one of two “incompleteness theorems” he published in 1931 — established that for any reasonable set of basic mathematical assumptions, called axioms, it’s impossible to…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-unknowable-math-can-help-hide-secrets-20260511/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-unknowable-math-can-help-hide-secrets-20260511/

2026-04-10 22:00:39 GMT

Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI?
In fall 2024, the best-selling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari went on the talk show Morning Joe. “Let me tell you one small story,” he said. “When OpenAI developed GPT-4, they wanted to test what this thing can do. So they gave it a test to solve captcha puzzles.” Those are the visual puzzles — warped numbers and letters — that prove to a website that you’re not a robot. GPT-4 couldn’t…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-tell-ourselves-scary-stories-about-ai-20260410/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-tell-ourselves-scary-stories-about-ai-20260410/

2026-04-03 15:21:20 GMT

New Advances Bring the Era of Quantum Computers Closer Than Ever
Some 30 years ago, the mathematician Peter Shor took a niche physics project — the dream of building a computer based on the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics — and shook the world. Shor worked out a way for quantum computers to swiftly solve a couple of math problems that classical computers could complete only after many billions of years. Those two math problems happened to be the…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-advances-bring-the-era-of-quantum-computers-closer-than-ever-20260403/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-advances-bring-the-era-of-quantum-computers-closer-than-ever-20260403/

2026-04-01 14:59:36 GMT

A Through-The-Lens Look at the World’s Particle Physics Labs
Last summer, a wedding photographer walked begrudgingly into a physics laboratory outside Rome. Feeling uninspired by the intricate machinery around him, he decided to turn off the lights. “I wanted to create a world that was a bit more intimate,” said the photographer, Marco Donghia. He had been brought into the lab to participate in a photography contest by his sister Raffaella Donghia…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/global-physics-photowalk-2025-winners-revealed-20260401/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/global-physics-photowalk-2025-winners-revealed-20260401/

2026-03-30 15:17:36 GMT

In Expanding de Sitter Space, Quantum Mechanics Gets Even More Elusive
In theory, a universe can come in any shape or size, but scientists prefer to think about three basic kinds of universes: one that’s expanding, one that’s collapsing, and one that stays the same. Out of these three simplified models, an expanding universe is the hardest for physicists to understand. Yet it’s exactly the one our real world most resembles. When physicists calculate what’s going on…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-expanding-de-sitter-space-quantum-mechanics-gets-even-more-elusive-20260330/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-expanding-de-sitter-space-quantum-mechanics-gets-even-more-elusive-20260330/

2026-03-27 14:41:10 GMT

When Coupled Volcanoes Talk, These Researchers Listen
In the summer of 1912, word reached Robert Fiske Griggs that the apocalypse had arrived on Kodiak, an inhabited island off the coast of Alaska. The following year, Griggs, a botanist at the University of Ohio, led the first of several expeditions to the island, where he and a team glimpsed a disquieting sight: Kodiak was shrouded in a full foot of ash. And it wasn’t just the island.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-coupled-volcanoes-talk-these-researchers-listen-20260327/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/when-coupled-volcanoes-talk-these-researchers-listen-20260327/

2026-03-25 14:54:46 GMT

How Writing Changes Mathematical Thought
It’s natural to think of math as being fundamentally abstract. Whether it’s invented or discovered, its truths are so literally universal that even aliens would agree (so the thinking goes) that 2 and 2 make 4. The actual work of mathematics, though, typically involves something utterly earthbound: “making marks on paper or blackboards,” said David E. Dunning, a historian of mathematics and…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-writing-changes-mathematical-thought-20260325/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-writing-changes-mathematical-thought-20260325/

2026-03-25 14:54:41 GMT

In Math, Rigor Is Vital. But Are Digitized Proofs Taking It Too Far?
In ancient Greece, Euclid showed that if you agree on a small list of preliminary principles, or axioms, you can use deductive reasoning to reveal all sorts of new mathematical truths. But although these early proofs, as mathematicians call them, were derived using the laws of logic, they sometimes also contained hidden, unstated assumptions or relied on misleading intuitions. In these cases…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-math-rigor-is-vital-but-are-digitized-proofs-taking-it-too-far-20260325/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-math-rigor-is-vital-but-are-digitized-proofs-taking-it-too-far-20260325/

2026-03-23 15:01:38 GMT

Are Strings Still Our Best Hope for a Theory of Everything?
Fifty-eight years after it first appeared, string theory remains the most popular candidate for the “theory of everything,” the unified mathematical framework for all matter and forces in the universe. This is much to the chagrin of its rather vocal critics. “String theory is not dead; it’s undead and now walks around like a zombie eating people’s brains,” the former physicist Sabine Hossenfelder…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-strings-still-our-best-hope-for-a-theory-of-everything-20260323/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-strings-still-our-best-hope-for-a-theory-of-everything-20260323/

2026-03-20 14:29:51 GMT

The Jellies That Evolved a Different Way To Keep Time
The passage of the sun across the sky — dawn, day, dusk, night — drives the clock of life. Some species wake with the sun and sleep with the moon. Others do the opposite, and a few keep odd hours. These naturally driven, 24-hour biological cycles are known as circadian rhythms, and they do more than cue bedtime: They regulate hormones, metabolism, DNA repair, and more. When life falls out of sync…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-jellies-that-evolved-a-different-way-to-keep-time-20260320/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-jellies-that-evolved-a-different-way-to-keep-time-20260320/

2026-03-18 09:03:17 GMT

Quantum Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award
One afternoon in October 1979, Gilles Brassard was swimming outside a beachfront hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when a stranger swam up to him and changed the course of his career. Without so much as an introduction, the man began describing a way to create currency that couldn’t be forged. The scheme was based on the laws of quantum physics — a subject Brassard, a computer scientist…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryptography-pioneers-win-turing-award-20260318/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-cryptography-pioneers-win-turing-award-20260318/

2026-03-16 13:52:33 GMT

The Math That Explains Why Bell Curves Are Everywhere
No matter where you look, a bell curve is close by. Place a measuring cup in your backyard every time it rains and note the height of the water when it stops: Your data will conform to a bell curve. Record 100 people’s guesses at the number of jelly beans in a jar, and they’ll follow a bell curve. Measure enough women’s heights, men’s weights, SAT scores, marathon times — you’ll always get the…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-that-explains-why-bell-curves-are-everywhere-20260316/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-that-explains-why-bell-curves-are-everywhere-20260316/

2026-03-13 14:39:23 GMT

Why Do Humanoid Robots Still Struggle With the Small Stuff?
The last time I covered the science of humanoid robots, the state of the art looked downright Orwellian — by which I mean, “four legs good, two legs bad.” It was 2015. Boston Dynamics’ first “Spot” quadruped had taken YouTube by storm, confidently trotting up stairs and recovering from vicious kicks. Also popular at the time: humanoids falling down. Constantly. I felt sorrier for those tottering…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-humanoid-robots-still-struggle-with-the-small-stuff-20260313/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-humanoid-robots-still-struggle-with-the-small-stuff-20260313/

2026-03-11 14:08:31 GMT

Where Some See Strings, She Sees a Space-Time Made of Fractals
Astrid Eichhorn spends her days thinking about how the laws of physics change at the tiniest scales. Imagine zooming in closer and closer to the device on which you’re reading this article. Its apparently smooth screen quickly dissolves into a jiggling lattice of molecules, which in turn resolve into clouds of electrons buzzing around atomic nuclei. You dive into a nucleus…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-some-see-strings-she-sees-a-space-time-made-of-fractals-20260311/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/where-some-see-strings-she-sees-a-space-time-made-of-fractals-20260311/

2026-03-09 14:23:16 GMT

Disorder Drives One of Nature’s Most Complex Machines
At the dawn of complex life, evolution created a container for DNA, its most treasured item. A few billion years later, 20th-century microscopists looked at this container — the nucleus — up close and saw that it was covered in tiny openings. At the time, they didn’t know what to make of these structures, but as microscopy improved, something grand came into focus: what we now call “nuclear pore…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/disorder-drives-one-of-natures-most-complex-machines-20260309/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/disorder-drives-one-of-natures-most-complex-machines-20260309/

2026-03-06 15:00:50 GMT

New Strides Made on Deceptively Simple ‘Lonely Runner’ Problem
Picture a bizarre training exercise: A group of runners starts jogging around a circular track, with each runner maintaining a unique, constant pace. Will every runner end up “lonely,” or relatively far from everyone else, at least once, no matter their speeds? Mathematicians conjecture that the answer is yes. The “lonely runner” problem might seem simple and inconsequential, but it crops up…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-strides-made-on-deceptively-simple-lonely-runner-problem-20260306/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-strides-made-on-deceptively-simple-lonely-runner-problem-20260306/

2026-03-04 15:13:59 GMT

Can the Most Abstract Math Make the World a Better Place?
“I’ve spent a long time exploring the crystalline beauty of traditional mathematics, but now I’m feeling an urge to study something slightly more earthy,” John Baez wrote on his blog in 2011. An influential mathematical physicist who splits his time between the University of California, Riverside and the University of Edinburgh, Baez had grown increasingly concerned about the state of the planet…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-the-most-abstract-math-make-the-world-a-better-place-20260304/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-the-most-abstract-math-make-the-world-a-better-place-20260304/

2026-03-02 15:13:05 GMT

What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System
The standard story of the origin of our solar system has gone like this: 4.6 billion years ago, a giant cloud of dust hung frozen in space. Then the explosion of a nearby star caused part of that dust cloud to collapse. Pulled by gravity toward a central point, the dust coalesced into a radiating ball of hydrogen and helium about 1.4 million kilometers in diameter — what would become our sun.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-crystals-older-than-the-sun-reveal-about-the-start-of-the-solar-system-20260302/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-crystals-older-than-the-sun-reveal-about-the-start-of-the-solar-system-20260302/

2026-02-27 17:07:31 GMT

What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System
EXCERPT: shows up on hp and article listings
The post [What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-crystals-older-than-the-sun-reveal-about-the-start-of-the-solar-system-20260227/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-crystals-older-than-the-sun-reveal-about-the-start-of-the-solar-system-20260227/

2026-02-27 15:42:14 GMT

Break It To Make It: How Fracturing Sculpts Tissues and Organs
There’s a moment, just before the tight mass of cells that is a developing mouse embryo implants itself in the womb, that it all comes apart. Hundreds of tiny fluid-filled bubbles expand between each of the orb’s few dozen cells. The bubbles grow and press outward on cell membranes — and then, in a moment of fracture, pry them apart. Thin protein stands tether the cells together as the…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/break-it-to-make-it-how-fracturing-sculpts-tissues-and-organs-20260227/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/break-it-to-make-it-how-fracturing-sculpts-tissues-and-organs-20260227/

2026-02-25 16:24:57 GMT

The Man Who Stole Infinity
When Demian Goos followed Karin Richter into her office on March 12 of last year, the first thing he noticed was the bust. It sat atop a tall pedestal in the corner of the room, depicting a bald, elderly gentleman with a stoic countenance. Goos saw no trace of the anxious, lonely man who had obsessed him for over a year. Instead, this was Georg Cantor as history saw him. An intellectual giant…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-stole-infinity-20260225/

2026-02-23 18:20:47 GMT

How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?
Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others.
The post [How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-can-infinity-come-in-many-sizes-20260223/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-can-infinity-come-in-many-sizes-20260223/

2026-02-20 14:48:46 GMT

Climate Physicists Face the Ghosts in Their Machines: Clouds
In October 2008, Chris Bretherton lifted off from the coast of northern Chile in a C-130 turboprop plane. It was too dark to see the sandy hills of the Atacama Desert below, but the darkness suited Bretherton just fine. The researcher wasn’t going sightseeing. Seated directly behind the pilots, he kept his focus entirely on the sky. The plane was stuffed with instruments, and its wings bristled…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds-20260220/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/climate-physicists-face-the-ghosts-in-their-machines-clouds-20260220/

2026-02-18 16:12:14 GMT

The Biophysical World Inside a Jam-Packed Cell
It’s a familiar image, reprinted in countless biology textbooks: an illustration of a typical cell, halved like a grapefruit to reveal its innards. Strands of endoplasmic reticulum encircle a nucleus that floats in the center like a raft. RNA molecules wait patiently at ribosomes to deliver recipes for making proteins. A few vacuoles and Golgi bodies bob about. A mostly deserted cytosol offers a…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-biophysical-world-inside-a-jam-packed-cell-20260218/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-biophysical-world-inside-a-jam-packed-cell-20260218/

2026-02-17 18:12:53 GMT

A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age
Computer science, at its most fundamental, is all about inputs and outputs. Consider the simple case of multiplying two numbers on a pocket calculator. You punch in some inputs — the specific numbers you want to multiply — and the screen displays an output representing their product. The reverse problem of breaking a number into its prime factors can be much harder, but it has the same basic…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-complexity-theory-for-the-quantum-age-20260217/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-complexity-theory-for-the-quantum-age-20260217/

2026-02-13 15:49:09 GMT

Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning To Dissolve?
N one of the leading interpretations of quantum theory are very convincing. They ask us to believe, for example, that the world we experience is fundamentally divided from the subatomic realm it’s built from. Or that there is a wild proliferation of parallel universes, or that a mysterious process causes quantumness to spontaneously collapse. This unsatisfying state was a key element of Beyond…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-the-mysteries-of-quantum-mechanics-beginning-to-dissolve-20260213/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-the-mysteries-of-quantum-mechanics-beginning-to-dissolve-20260213/

2026-02-11 15:03:59 GMT

Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water
If you were asked to picture how electrons move, you could be forgiven for imagining a stream of particles sluicing down a wire like water rushing through a pipe. After all, we often describe electrons as “flowing” in an “electric current.” In reality, water and electricity flow in completely different ways. Whereas water molecules move together to form a swirly, coherent substance…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-make-electrons-flow-like-water-20260211/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-make-electrons-flow-like-water-20260211/

2026-02-09 15:20:07 GMT

Fed on Reams of Cell Data, AI Maps New Neighborhoods in the Brain
Real estate agents will tell you that a home’s most important feature is “location, location, location.” It’s similar in neuroscience: “Location is everything in the brain,” said Bosiljka Tasic, a self-described “biological cartographer.” Brain injury in one spot could knock out memory; damage in another could interfere with personality. Neuroscientists and doctors are lost without a good map.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/fed-on-reams-of-cell-data-ai-maps-new-neighborhoods-in-the-brain-20260209/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/fed-on-reams-of-cell-data-ai-maps-new-neighborhoods-in-the-brain-20260209/

2026-02-06 14:58:58 GMT

Long-Sought Proof Tames Some of Math’s Unruliest Equations
The trajectory of a storm, the evolution of stock prices, the spread of disease — mathematicians can describe any phenomenon that changes in time or space using what are known as partial differential equations. But there’s a problem: These “PDEs” are often so complicated that it’s impossible to solve them directly. Mathematicians instead rely on a clever workaround. They might not know how to…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-sought-proof-tames-some-of-maths-unruliest-equations-20260206/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/long-sought-proof-tames-some-of-maths-unruliest-equations-20260206/

2026-02-04 15:42:01 GMT

Expansion Microscopy Has Transformed How We See the Cellular World
When you slip a slide under a microscope, a system of glass lenses magnifies the object of your attention — a microbe, for example. But even with the largest zoom on a classic compound optical system, scientists struggle to make sense of finer details, which can be further obscured when tough cell walls make it difficult to inject dyes that help identify structures. Now, rather than invest in…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/expansion-microscopy-has-transformed-how-we-see-the-cellular-world-20260204/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/expansion-microscopy-has-transformed-how-we-see-the-cellular-world-20260204/

2026-02-02 16:49:18 GMT

How Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos
In early 2007, René Hudec was in Building D of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, thumbing through roomfuls of floor-to-ceiling cabinets that look more like a vast record collection than an academic archive. Each paper sleeve holds a glass plate, most of which are 8 by 10 inches, a historic photographic record of the cosmos from before the age of sophisticated digital detectors.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-modern-and-antique-technologies-reveal-a-dynamic-cosmos-20260202/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-modern-and-antique-technologies-reveal-a-dynamic-cosmos-20260202/

2026-01-30 15:42:14 GMT

Once Thought To Support Neurons, Astrocytes Turn Out To Be in Charge
The human brain is a vast network of billions of neurons. By exchanging signals to depress or excite each other, they generate patterns that ripple across the brain up to 1,000 times per second. For more than a century, that dizzyingly complex neuronal code was thought to be the sole arbiter of perception, thought, emotion, and behavior, as well as related health conditions. If you wanted to…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought-to-support-neurons-astrocytes-turn-out-to-be-in-charge-20260130/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-thought-to-support-neurons-astrocytes-turn-out-to-be-in-charge-20260130/

2026-01-28 15:55:22 GMT

Networks Hold the Key to a Decades-Old Problem About Waves
Two centuries ago, Joseph Fourier gave mathematicians a magical technique. He conjectured that it’s possible to write almost any function as a sum of simple waves, a trick now called the Fourier transform. These days, the Fourier transform is used to understand everything from the chemical makeup of distant stars to what’s happening far beneath the Earth’s crust. “Fourier series are everywhere…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/networks-hold-the-key-to-a-decades-old-problem-about-waves-20260128/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/networks-hold-the-key-to-a-decades-old-problem-about-waves-20260128/

2026-01-26 15:37:44 GMT

Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
In July 2012, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe triumphantly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought linchpin of the subatomic world. Interacting with Higgs bosons imbues other elementary particles with mass, making them slow down enough to assemble into atoms, which then clump together to make everything else. A couple of months later, I took a job as…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-physics-dead-dying-or-just-hard-20260126/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-physics-dead-dying-or-just-hard-20260126/

2026-01-23 15:28:36 GMT

Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes
Nearly three years ago, a particle from space slammed into the Mediterranean Sea and lit up the partially complete Cubic Kilometer Neutrino Telescope (KM3NET) detector off the coast of Sicily. The particle was a neutrino, a fundamental component of matter commonly known for its ability to slip through other matter unnoticed. The IceCube observatory in Antarctica, a comparable detector that has…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/monster-neutrino-could-be-a-messenger-of-ancient-black-holes-20260123/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/monster-neutrino-could-be-a-messenger-of-ancient-black-holes-20260123/

2026-01-21 15:19:05 GMT

How Animals Build a Sense of Direction
On a remote island in the Indian Ocean, six closely watched bats took to the star-draped skies. As they flew across the seven-acre speck of land, devices implanted in their brains pinged data back to a group of sleepy-eyed neuroscientists monitoring them from below. The researchers were working to understand how these flying mammals, who have brains not unlike our own, develop a sense of direction…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-animals-build-a-sense-of-direction-20260121/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-animals-build-a-sense-of-direction-20260121/

2026-01-20 16:13:32 GMT

Two Twisty Shapes Resolve a Centuries-Old Topology Puzzle
Imagine if our skies were always filled with a thick layer of opaque clouds. With no way to see the stars, or to view our planet from above, would we have ever discovered that the Earth is round? The answer is yes. By measuring particular distances and angles on the ground, we can determine that the Earth is a sphere and not, say, flat or doughnut-shaped — even without a satellite picture.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-twisty-shapes-resolve-a-centuries-old-topology-puzzle-20260120/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/two-twisty-shapes-resolve-a-centuries-old-topology-puzzle-20260120/

2026-01-16 15:11:52 GMT

Why There’s No Single Best Way To Store Information
Just as there’s no single best way to organize your bookshelf, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to storing information. Consider the simple situation where you create a new digital file. Your computer needs to rapidly find a place to put it. If you later want to delete it, the machine must quickly find the right bits to erase. Researchers aim to design storage systems…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-theres-no-single-best-way-to-store-information-20260116/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-theres-no-single-best-way-to-store-information-20260116/

2026-01-14 14:58:53 GMT

String Theory Can Now Describe a Universe That Has Dark Energy
In 1998, astronomers discovered dark energy. The finding, which transformed our conception of the cosmos, came with a little-known consequence: It threw a wrench into the already daunting task of finding a version of string theory that describes the universe we live in. Dark energy is a “positive” energy that causes our universe to expand at an accelerating rate. But the best-understood models…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theory-can-now-describe-a-universe-that-has-dark-energy-20260114/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/string-theory-can-now-describe-a-universe-that-has-dark-energy-20260114/

2026-01-12 14:59:34 GMT

Cells Use ‘Bioelectricity’ To Coordinate and Make Group Decisions
We’re used to thinking of the brain as an electric organ. The rest of the body? Not so much. But it would be a mistake to dismiss your other tissues as dumb hunks of electrically inert flesh. Even the protective layers of cells that compose your skin and line your organs use electrical signals to make decisions, according to recent research. Results published in Nature show that cells use…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions-20260112/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions-20260112/

2026-01-09 15:46:58 GMT

Using AI, Mathematicians Find Hidden Glitches in Fluid Equations
Nearly 200 years ago, the physicists Claude-Louis Navier and George Gabriel Stokes put the finishing touches on a set of equations that describe how fluids swirl. And for nearly 200 years, the Navier-Stokes equations have served as an unimpeachable theory of how fluids in the real world behave — from ocean currents threading their way between the continents to air wrapping around an aircraft’s…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/using-ai-mathematicians-find-hidden-glitches-in-fluid-equations-20260109/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/using-ai-mathematicians-find-hidden-glitches-in-fluid-equations-20260109/

2026-01-07 15:25:01 GMT

Distinct AI Models Seem To Converge On How They Encode Reality
Read a story about dogs, and you may remember it the next time you see one bounding through a park. That’s only possible because you have a unified concept of “dog” that isn’t tied to words or images alone. Bulldog or border collie, barking or getting its belly rubbed, a dog can be many things while still remaining a dog. Artificial intelligence systems aren’t always so lucky.
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/distinct-ai-models-seem-to-converge-on-how-they-encode-reality-20260107/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/distinct-ai-models-seem-to-converge-on-how-they-encode-reality-20260107/

2026-01-05 15:33:17 GMT

In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything
Suppose you want to empty a box. Really, truly empty it. You remove all its visible contents, pump out any gases, and — applying some science-fiction technology — evacuate any unseeable material such as dark matter. According to quantum mechanics, what’s left inside? It sounds like a trick question. And in quantum mechanics, you know to expect a trick answer. Not only is the box still filled…
[Source][1]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-quantum-mechanics-nothingness-is-the-potential-to-be-anything-20260105/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-quantum-mechanics-nothingness-is-the-potential-to-be-anything-20260105/

2025-12-22 15:16:24 GMT

How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA
Research into how a father’s choices, including diet, exercise, stress and nicotine use, may transfer traits to his children epigenetically has become impossible to ignore.
The post [How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fitness-may-be-packaged-and-passed-down-in-sperm-rna-20251222/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fitness-may-be-packaged-and-passed-down-in-sperm-rna-20251222/

2025-12-18 15:32:29 GMT

The Year in Mathematics
Explore a shape that can’t pass through itself, a teenage prodigy, and two new kinds of infinity.
The post [The Year in Mathematics][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-mathematics-20251218/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-mathematics-20251218/

2025-12-17 14:47:51 GMT

The Year in Physics
Physicists spotted a “terribly exciting” new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and debated the meaning of quantum mechanics.
The post [The Year in Physics][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-physics-20251217/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-physics-20251217/

2025-12-16 14:24:16 GMT

The Year in Computer Science
Explore the year’s most surprising computational revelations, including a new fundamental relationship between time and space, an undergraduate who overthrew a 40-year-old conjecture, and the unexpectedly effortless triggers that can turn AI evil.
The post [The Year in Computer Science][1] first appeared on [Quanta Magazine][2]
[1]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-computer-science-20251216/
[2]: https://www.quantamagazine.org
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-computer-science-20251216/