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A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate
New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy.
Three Decades Later, Mystery Numbers Explained
Zeta values seem to connect distant geometric worlds. In a new proof, mathematicians finally explain why.
Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses
Disease-causing viruses and message-carrying vesicles sit at the ends of a spectrum of membranous particles that cells release.
A Radically Conservative Solution for Cosmology’s Biggest Mystery
Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate yield two conflicting answers. Many point to the possibility of new physics at work, but a new analysis argues that unseen errors could be to blame.
Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein’s Theory of Gravity
New observations of extreme astrophysical systems have “brutally and pitilessly murdered” attempts to replace Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Solution: ‘The DNA Computer Program’
Computer code serves as a useful analogy for what our genes do, but the complexity and messiness of life go well beyond simple analogies and mathematical models.
Scientists Map the Genetic Steps as Eggs Become Animals
For the first time, researchers have traced the genetic programs that guide the development of each cell in early embryos. Surprisingly, even cells that start out different can end up the same.
First Big Steps Toward Proving the Unique Games Conjecture
The latest in a new series of proofs brings theoretical computer scientists within striking distance of one of the great conjectures of their discipline.
Chronological Clues to Life’s Early History Lurk in Gene Transfers
To date the branches on the evolutionary tree of life, researchers are looking at horizontal gene transfers among ancient microorganisms, which once seemed only to muddle the record.