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Researchers Tap a Sleep Switch in the Brain
Powerful new experiments have uncovered some of the molecular underpinnings of sleep.
The Hidden Twist to Making a Möbius Strip
The simple Möbius strip illustrates a deep mathematical challenge that has long tormented the field of symplectic geometry.
A Fight to Fix Geometry’s Foundations
When two mathematicians raised pointed questions about a classic proof that no one really understood, they ignited a years-long debate about how much could be trusted in a new kind of geometry.
Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness
Physicists are closing the door on an intriguing loophole around the quantum phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”
To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics
The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them.
How Life Turns Asymmetric
Scientists are uncovering how our bodies — and everything within them — tell right from left.
Solution: ‘How Many Half-Lives?’
When do negative results from a half-life experiment mean a theory is dead?
How Life (and Death) Spring From Disorder
Life was long thought to obey its own set of rules. But as simple systems show signs of lifelike behavior, scientists are arguing about whether this apparent complexity is all a consequence of thermodynamics.
How Viruses May Have Led to Complex Life
Without viruses, we might never have evolved.