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The Math That Tells Cells What They Are
During development, cells seem to decode their fate through optimal information processing, which could hint at a more general principle of life.
Math Duo Maps the Infinite Terrain of Minimal Surfaces
A pair of mathematicians has built on an obscure, 30-year-old mathematical theory to show that soap-filmlike minimal surfaces appear abundantly in a wide range of shapes.
How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science
The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated?
Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox
Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make it easy for civilizations to spread across the galaxy, but still we might find ourselves alone.
Neuroscience Readies for a Showdown Over Consciousness Ideas
To make headway on the mystery of consciousness, some researchers are trying a rigorous new way to test competing theories.
The Universe’s Ultimate Complexity Revealed by Simple Quantum Games
A two-player game can reveal whether the universe has an infinite amount of complexity.
The Physics Still Hiding in the Higgs Boson
No new particles have been found at the Large Hadron Collider since the Higgs boson in 2012, but physicists say there’s much we can still learn from the Higgs itself.
With a Second Repeating Radio Burst, Astronomers Close In on an Explanation
Brief cosmic blips called fast radio bursts have puzzled astronomers since their discovery earlier this decade. Now researchers appear to be close to understanding what powers them.
Doudna’s Confidence in CRISPR’s Research Potential Burns Bright
Jennifer Doudna, one of CRISPR’s primary innovators, stays optimistic about how the gene-editing tool will continue to empower basic biological understanding.