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Quanta Magazine | Science and Math News

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Carlos Arrojo for Quanta Magazine

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evolution

Evolving Bacteria Can Evade Barriers to ‘Peak’ Fitness

By Veronique Greenwood
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Paradoxically, natural selection can sometimes seem to block organisms from evolving useful adaptations. But a new study of “fitness landscapes” and antibiotic resistance in bacteria shows that life still finds a way.

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By Veronique Greenwood
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An illustration of electric current flowing through two types of materials. In the normal wire, current is represented by discrete electrons. In the unusual material, it is transformed into a psychedelic swirl of colors.
condensed matter physics

Meet Strange Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons

By Charlie Wood
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For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart.

Quantized Academy

Pierre de Fermat’s Link to a High School Student’s Prime Math Proof

By Patrick Honner
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How Fermat’s less famous “little theorem” got mathematicians young and old to play with prime-like Carmichael numbers.

physiology

In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
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Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand.

algorithms

Researchers Refute a Widespread Belief About Online Algorithms

By Madison Goldberg
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Three computer scientists have disproved a long-standing conjecture about a fundamental problem involving imperfect information.

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To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past
By Ben Brubaker
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Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the path they took. A new result suggests that the trade-off may be inevitable.

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combinatorics

The Astonishing Behavior of Recursive Sequences

By Alex Stone
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reinforcement learning

AI System Beats Chess Puzzles With ‘Artificial Brainstorming’

By Stephen Ornes
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By bringing together disparate approaches, machines can reach a new level of creative problem-solving.

immunology

During Pregnancy, a Fake ‘Infection’ Protects the Fetus

By Annie Melchor
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Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus.

An illustration of a hand holding a pair of orange, planetlike objects that orbit one another. Behind it is a box full of reddish planets and green stars. There are two slots at the top of the box. One is shaped like a star, and the other is round, like a planet. The pair of planets doesn’t fit into either slot.
astrophysics

Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit

By Charlie Wood
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Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.

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Andreas Wagner Pursues the Secrets to Evolutionary Success

By Veronique Greenwood
Illustration of COVID-19 virus particles rolling across a 3D landscape.

Evolution ‘Landscapes’ Predict What’s Next for COVID Virus

By Carrie Arnold
An illustration in which a capsule-shaped drug imprinted with circuit-board diagrams blasts nearby bacteria.

Machine Learning Takes On Antibiotic Resistance

By Katherine Harmon Courage

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Multimedia

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number theory
Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math
By Jordana Cepelewicz
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Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they?


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The Joy of Why

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How Do Mathematicians Know Their Proofs Are Correct?

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What makes a proof stronger than a guess? What does evidence look like in the realm of mathematical abstraction? Hear the mathematician Melanie Matchett Wood explain how probability helps to guide number theorists toward certainty.


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About Quanta Magazine

Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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Quanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.

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