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Can Microbes Encourage Altruism?
If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.
Solution: ‘Bongard Problems and Scientific Discovery’
Like scientific puzzles, Bongard problems can lead you through a frustrating blind search until you find that simple, elegant rule that fits a seemingly random pattern.
The Tricky Translation of Mathematical Ideas
Big advances in math can happen when mathematicians move ideas into areas where they seem like they shouldn’t belong.
Planet Nine Is Put on Trial in Absentia
Breathless media coverage notwithstanding, the cases for and against a hypothetical Planet Nine in the outskirts of the solar system remain inconclusive.
A Path Less Taken to the Peak of the Math World
June Huh thought he had no talent for math until a chance meeting with a legendary mind. A decade later, his unorthodox approach to mathematical thinking has led to major breakthroughs.
Juan Maldacena, Pondering Quantum Gravity by the Pond
One of the world’s preeminent theoretical physicists seeks a quiet place to think.
Moonlighting Genes Evolve for a Venomous Job
An unexpected mechanism allows wasps to rapidly co-opt genes for new toxic functions.
Researchers Check Space-Time to See if It’s Made of Quantum Bits
The newly developed theory of emergent gravity, proposed as an alternative to dark matter, struggles in one of its first trials.
Where Gravity Is Weak and Naked Singularities Are Verboten
Recent calculations tie together two conjectures about gravity, potentially revealing new truths about its elusive quantum nature.