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Mathematicians Begin to Tame Wild ‘Sunflower’ Problem
A major advance toward solving the 60-year-old sunflower conjecture is shedding light on how order begins to appear as random systems grow in size.
How the Neutrino’s Tiny Mass Could Help Solve Big Mysteries
The KATRIN experiment is closing in on the mass of the neutrino, which could point to new laws of particle physics and shape theories of cosmology.
Nobel Awarded for Lithium-Ion Batteries and Portable Power
John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing lithium-ion batteries, “the hidden workhorses of the mobile era.”
Physics Nobel Honors Early Universe and Exoplanet Discoveries
The astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won half of the prize for their 1995 discovery of a Jupiter-like planet orbiting a nearby star. The cosmologist James Peebles won the other half for work exploring the structure of the universe.
Nobel Prize Awarded for Discoveries on How Cells Adapt to Oxygen
The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honored William Kaelin Jr., Peter Ratcliffe and Gregg Semenza for their work on elucidating how cells adjust to low oxygen levels.
Your Brain Chooses What to Let You See
Beneath our awareness, the brain lets certain kinds of stimuli automatically capture our attention by lowering the priority of the rest.
Computers and Humans ‘See’ Differently. Does It Matter?
In some ways, machine vision is superior to human vision. In other ways, it may never catch up.
Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNA
Origin-of-life researchers have usually studied the potential of pure starting materials, but messy mixtures of chemicals may kick-start life more effectively.
Physicists Finally Nail the Proton’s Size, and Hope Dies
A new measurement appears to have eliminated an anomaly that had captivated physicists for nearly a decade.