Jessica Kourkounis for Quanta Magazine
Peter and Rosemary Grant in front of an Allosaurus in Princeton University's Guyot Hall.
The biologists Rosemary and Peter Grant have spent four decades on a tiny island in the Galápagos. Their discoveries reveal how new animal species can emerge in just a few generations.
Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics.
What insights can an LCD display give us about time’s arrow?
What No New Particles Means for Physics
Physicists are confronting their “nightmare scenario.” What does the absence of new particles suggest about how nature works?
The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions
Irrationality may be a consequence of the brain’s ravenous energy needs.
A Seeker of Dark Matter’s Hidden Light
The physicist Tracy Slatyer is searching for faint wisps of dark matter annihilating in the early universe — and perhaps in hiding places closer to home.
Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed
Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems.
The Strange Second Life of String Theory
String theory has so far failed to live up to its promise as a way to unite gravity and quantum mechanics. At the same time, it has blossomed into one of the most useful sets of tools in science.
From Gaia, a Twinkling Treasure Trove
The first star map from the ESA’s Gaia space telescope is poised to revolutionize our understanding of the Milky Way galaxy.