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Missing Mutations Suggest a Reason for Sex
Sex might help natural selection purge excessive mistakes from our genes.
Cell Atlases Reveal Biology’s Frontiers
New techniques expose unexpected diversity within seemingly uniform tissues.
Marjorie Rice’s Secret Pentagons
A California housewife who in the 1970s discovered four new types of tessellating pentagons is dead at 94.
Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem
A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all convex polygons, that tile the plane.
Subhash Khot, Playing Unique Games in Washington Square Park
The theoretical computer scientist behind the influential Unique Games Conjecture delights in the wonders of New York’s Washington Square Park, where he ponders the impossible.
Why Are There Two Sexes?
Asexual reproduction can produce twice as many offspring as sexual reproduction without the hassle of finding and courting a mate. So why do most complex animals have two sexes? Why not three?
How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation
The evolutionary biologist Jessica Flack seeks the computational rules that groups of organisms use to solve problems.
Lucky Break Leads to Controversial Supernova Discovery
Supernova hunters were able to train their telescopes on a recent eruption just hours after it exploded. What they found only adds to the growing list of questions surrounding these cosmic blasts.
Strange Noise in Gravitational-Wave Data Sparks Debate
The team that discovered gravitational waves put their data online. Now an independent group of researchers claims that they’ve found what might be a serious problem.