Archive

Rethinking questions and chasing patterns led Newton to find the connection between curves and infinite sums.

Anima Anandkumar wants computer scientists to move beyond the matrix, among other challenges.

A new study reveals that bacteria can fight viruses in a surprisingly elegant way that has no known counterpart in more complex life.

Eric Larson and Isabel Vogt have solved the interpolation problem — a centuries-old question about some of the most basic objects in geometry. Some credit goes to the chalkboard in their living room.

Dreams are subjective, but there are ways to peer into the minds of people while they are dreaming. Steven Strogatz speaks with sleep researcher Antonio Zadra about how new experimental methods have changed our understanding of dreams.

Two researchers have broken an encryption protocol that many saw as a promising defense against the power of quantum computing.

Supermassive black holes have come to the fore as engines of galactic evolution, but new observations of the Milky Way and its central hole don’t yet hang together.

By studying how electric organs arose in different lineages of fish, scientists gain new insights into a long-standing question of evolutionary biology.

In honor of the actor and activist Nichelle Nichols, this month’s puzzle imagines a Star Trek adventure in which her character, Lieutenant Uhura, faces a life-and-death conundrum.