Archive

There are many different ways to think about probability. Quantum mechanics embodies them all.

Since the 1970s, physicists have described black holes using borrowed versions of the laws of thermodynamics. But are black holes really thermodynamic systems? Craig Callender worries that the analogy has been stretched too far.

Genetically identical bacteria should all be the same, but in fact, the cells are stubbornly varied individuals.

While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam like electrons in metallic bonds.

Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways.

Researchers have confirmed rumors of a black hole collision that challenges our ideas about how black holes form.

In the “underground economy” for soil nutrients, fungi strike hard bargains and punish plants that won’t meet their price.

Iyad Rahwan’s radical idea: The best way to understand algorithms is to observe their behavior in the wild.

The theoretical particle physicist Ann Nelson, who died on August 4 at age 61, was a font of brilliant ideas and a champion of ending discrimination in the field.