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A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold
For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry.
Yves Meyer, Wavelet Expert, Wins Abel Prize
The French mathematician was cited “for his pivotal role in the development of the mathematical theory of wavelets.”
A Ticking Evolutionary Clock
How quickly will a gene’s rate of evolution slow to a crawl?
Evolution Runs Faster on Short Timescales
Examine evolution over the course of years or centuries, and you’ll find that it progresses much more quickly than it does over geologic time.
Solution: ‘Taming Quantum Weirdness’
A simple analogue could offer insights into one of the most astonishing results of quantum mechanics.
19 Women Leading Math and Physics
Top women in mathematics and physics discuss how they got to where they are — and why there aren’t more of them.
‘Digital Alchemist’ Seeks Rules of Emergence
Computational physicist Sharon Glotzer is uncovering the rules by which complex collective phenomena emerge from simple building blocks.
Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View
The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air.
The Almost-Proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem
19th-century mathematicians thought the “roots of unity” were the key to solving Fermat’s Last Theorem. Then they discovered a fatal flaw.