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Illustration in which a bright red line results from many wavelike ripples overlapping.
explainers

How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities

By Charlie Wood
February 6, 2023
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Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.

topology

Mathematicians Eliminate Long-Standing Threat to Knot Conjecture

By Leila Sloman
February 2, 2023
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A new proof shows that a knot some thought would contradict the famed slice-ribbon conjecture doesn’t.

illustration of abstract, boxy-looking robot surrounded by household items such as a knife and a guitar, all of which have labels attached.
artificial intelligence

Machines Learn Better if We Teach Them the Basics

By Max G. Levy
February 1, 2023
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A wave of research improves reinforcement learning algorithms by pre-training them as if they were human.

Quantized Columns

When Does the Brain Operate at Peak Performance?

By John M. Beggs
January 31, 2023
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The critical brain hypothesis suggests that neural networks do their best work when connections are not too weak or too strong.

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A graphical illustration showing a number of well-known stars in the present-day universe, along with the edge of a far bigger star.
astronomy

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

Video/image of a metronome whose arm is simultaneously ticking rightward and leftward.
quantum physics

How Quantum Physicists ‘Flipped Time’ (and How They Didn’t)

By Charlie Wood
January 27, 2023
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Two teams have made photons act as if time were simultaneously flowing in two directions. The experiments demonstrate a way to potentially boost the performance of quantum devices.

A sad woman stands under an umbrella that is decorated with images of brains, molecules and DNA. Rain falls on her under the umbrella but the day is otherwise clear.
neuroscience

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think

By Joanna Thompson
January 26, 2023
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Depression has often been blamed on low levels of serotonin in the brain. That answer is insufficient, but alternatives are coming into view and changing our understanding of the disease.

Shang-Hua Teng in a blazer on a street
Q&A

The Computer Scientist Who Finds Life Lessons in Games

By Ben Brubaker
January 25, 2023
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In Shang-Hua Teng’s work, theoretical and practical questions have long been intertwined. Now he’s turning his focus to the impractical.

Fanciful illustration of galaxies with various geometric shapes at their centers.
mathematical physics

Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes

By Steve Nadis
January 24, 2023
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In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But a new result shows that in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible.


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