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AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK
The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.
The Strange Physics That Gave Birth to AI
Modern thinking machines owe their existence to insights from the physics of complex materials.
Introducing The Quanta Podcast
Exploring the distant universe, the insides of cells, the abstractions of math, the complexity of information itself and much more, The Quanta Podcast will be a tour of the frontier between the known and the unknown.
What’s Going On Inside Io, Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon?
Recent flybys of the fiery world refute a leading theory of its inner structure — and reveal how little is understood about geologically active moons.
Improving Deep Learning With a Little Help From Physics
Rose Yu has a plan for how to make AI better, faster and smarter — and it’s already yielding results.
How a Biofilm’s Strange Shape Emerges From Cellular Geometry
Micro decisions can have macro consequences. A soft matter physicist reveals how interactions within simple cellular collectives can lead to emergent physical traits.
New Proof Settles Decades-Old Bet About Connected Networks
According to mathematical legend, Peter Sarnak and Noga Alon made a bet about optimal graphs in the late 1980s. They’ve now both been proved wrong.
Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab?
Quantum gravity could help physicists unite the currently incompatible worlds of quantum mechanics and gravity. In this episode, Monika Schleier-Smith discusses her pioneering experimental approach, using laser-cooled atoms to explore whether gravity could emerge from quantum entanglement.
Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors
Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations.