From brain folds to insect architecture, L. Mahadevan explains how complex biological forms and behaviors emerge through the interplay of physical forces, environment and embodiment.
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Latest Articles
Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles
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Every elementary particle falls into one of two categories. Collectivist bosons account for the forces that move us while individualist fermions keep our atoms from collapsing.
Is Mathematics Mostly Chaos or Mostly Order?
Two new notions of infinity challenge a long-standing plan to define the mathematical universe.
How AI Models Are Helping to Understand — and Control — the Brain
Martin Schrimpf is crafting bespoke AI models that can induce control over high-level brain activity.
The Ecosystem Dynamics That Can Make or Break an Invasion
By speedrunning ecosystems with microbes, researchers revealed intrinsic properties that may make a community susceptible to invasion.
Is Gravity Just Entropy Rising? Long-Shot Idea Gets Another Look.
A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical.
New Quantum Algorithm Factors Numbers With One Qubit
The catch: It would require the energy of a few medium-size stars.
First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry
Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.
How Much Energy Does It Take To Think?
Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.
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See all videosWhy Some People Don’t ‘See’ Mental Imagery: Aphantasia
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The Thought Experiments That Fray the Fabric of Space-Time
These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental.
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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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