Archive

A daring speculation offers a potential way forward in one of the great unsolved problems of mathematics: the behavior of the Navier-Stokes equations for fluid flow.

Scientists have finally resolved the structure of the molecule that responds to chili peppers, high temperatures and spider toxins.

With a new approach that treats the universe as a fluid, cosmologists plan to tease out the fine details of the Big Bang from its behavior and evolution.

Scientists have discovered building blocks similar to those in modern RNA that can effortlessly assemble when mixed in water and heated.

In a watershed moment for cryptography, computer scientists have proposed a solution to a fundamental problem called “program obfuscation.”

An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical properties.

Some organisms respond to stress by driving up their mutation rate. Are they evolving specific mechanisms to enhance evolution in times of crisis?

Mysterious episodes of genetic duplication in our great ape ancestors may have paved the way for human evolution.

Improvements in how densely spheres and other shapes can be packed together could lead to advances in materials science, deep space communication and theoretical physics.