Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers explains how fungal networks in soil trade nutrients with plants, help keep carbon underground, and strike bargains without having a brain.
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See Inside Cells Like Never Before in These Vivid Microscopic Images
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Winning entries in the 2026 Nikon Small World competitions reveal the hidden interactions that govern everyday life.
AI Proved the Quasi-Riemann Hypothesis. What Happens Now?
Unlike other recent AI proofs, this one has been unpacked by human experts. The implications, one mathematician said, are “staggering.”
He Wants AI Benchmarking To Be a Science, Not a Dark Art
Moritz Hardt, author of a new book on benchmarks, believes these “standardized tests” for artificial intelligence are fundamentally broken — but not unfixable.
Triplet of ‘Ghostly’ Galaxies Hints at What Dark Matter Is — and Isn’t
A collision may have left these galaxies without dark matter. That spells trouble for alternative gravity theories.
Is ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence?
A mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?
As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
In the shadow of a rumored AI proof of one of the biggest problems in their field, three computer scientists rushed to publish their own milestone result.
Is AI the End of Math As We Know It?
Mathematicians are facing the sudden shift with grief, anger, and a desperate search for fresh ideas: “If we don’t adapt, there’s just no more math in 50 years.”
Sea Monkeys Show Scientists How To Rewrite a Rule of Turbulence
Scientists assumed that energy flows in only one direction in a turbulent system. What they didn’t know, until they looked closely at brine shrimp, was that a simple factor can reverse the flow.
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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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