Archive

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.

If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin.

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.

Big advances in math can happen when mathematicians move ideas into areas where they seem like they shouldn’t belong.

Breathless media coverage notwithstanding, the cases for and against a hypothetical Planet Nine in the outskirts of the solar system remain inconclusive.

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.

One of the world’s preeminent theoretical physicists seeks a quiet place to think.

An unexpected mechanism allows wasps to rapidly co-opt genes for new toxic functions.

The newly developed theory of emergent gravity, proposed as an alternative to dark matter, struggles in one of its first trials.