Archive

To explain why men are on average taller than women, scientists theorized about competition for mates. But the effects of estrogen on bone growth may be answer enough.

Going without sleep for too long kills animals but scientists haven’t known why. Newly published work suggests that the answer lies in an unexpected part of the body.

Neural networks have been taught to quickly read the surfaces of proteins — molecules critical to many biological processes.

To distinguish between fundamentally different objects, mathematicians turn to invariants that encode the objects’ essential features.

Mathematicians try to figure out when problems can be solved using current knowledge — and when they have to chart a new path instead.

By chewing on the problems posed by “extremal” black holes, physicists have exposed a surprising and universal connection between energy and entropy.

Neuroscientists could use brain waves to spur immune cells into action against the disease — but the process is almost too fantastic to believe.

Collider physicists report that several measurements of particles called B mesons deviate from predictions. Alone, each oddity looks like a fluke, but their collective drift is more suggestive.

Readers poked holes in our paradoxical April Fools’ Day claims about perpetual energy and whether this puzzle solution would ever be published.