Archive
Latest Articles
How Artificial Intelligence Can Supercharge the Search for New Particles
In the hunt for new fundamental particles, physicists have always had to make assumptions about how the particles will behave. New machine learning algorithms don’t.
The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature
New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.”
Three Major Physics Discoveries and Counting
Sau Lan Wu spent decades working to establish the Standard Model of particle physics. Now she’s searching for what lies beyond it.
Why Nature Prefers Couples, Even for Yeast
Some species have the equivalent of many more than two sexes, but most do not. A new model suggests the reason depends on how often they mate.
A Short Guide to Hard Problems
What’s easy for a computer to do, and what’s almost impossible? Those questions form the core of computational complexity. We present a map of the landscape.
Neutrinos Linked With Cosmic Source for the First Time
High-energy neutrinos have been traced back to a flaring supermassive black hole known as a blazar. The long-sought link opens the door to an entirely new way to study the universe.
The Hunt for Earth’s Deep Hidden Oceans
Water-bearing minerals reveal that Earth’s mantle could hold more water than all its oceans. Researchers now ask: Where did it all come from?
To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future
A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations.
Slime Molds Remember — but Do They Learn?
Evidence mounts that organisms without nervous systems can in some sense learn and solve problems, but researchers disagree about whether this is “primitive cognition.”