We care about your data, and we'd like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy.
Quanta Homepage
  • Physics
  • Mathematics
  • Biology
  • Computer Science
  • Topics
  • Archive

Jordana Cepelewicz

Senior Writer

Twitter
Email

Latest Articles

A rectangle broken up into five fractions.
number theory

Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer

By Jordana Cepelewicz
March 9, 2022
Comment
Read Later

A new proof significantly strengthens a decades-old result about the ubiquity of ways to represent whole numbers as sums of unit fractions.

neuroscience

New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory

By Jordana Cepelewicz
February 8, 2022
Comment
Read Later

Researchers have mapped hundreds of semantic categories to the tiny bits of the cortex that represent them in our thoughts and perceptions. What they discovered might change our view of memory.

An illustration of a flashlight whose beam illuminates graphs and numbers.
number theory

Mathematicians Outwit Hidden Number Conspiracy

By Jordana Cepelewicz
January 3, 2022
Comment
Read Later

Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for some of the most difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned out to be just as difficult to solve, until now.

An illustration that shows words and music from an opera singer going into a listener’s brain.
neuroscience

The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 21, 2021
Comment
Read Later

Scientists thought that the brain’s hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on.

Photo of rat climbing through a lattice of thin rods.
neuroscience

How Animals Map 3D Spaces Surprises Brain Researchers

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 14, 2021
Comment
Read Later

When animals move through 3D spaces, the neat system of grid cell activity they use for navigating on flat surfaces gets more disorderly. That has implications for some ideas about memory and other processes.

Nobel Prize

Chemistry Nobel Prize Honors Technique for Building Molecules

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 6, 2021
Comment
Read Later

Benjamin List and David MacMillan received the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of asymmetrical organocatalysis.

Nobel Prize

Medicine Nobel Prize Goes to Temperature and Touch Discoveries

By Jordana Cepelewicz
October 4, 2021
Comment
Read Later

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of how we detect heat and touch.

Artist’s conception of DNA breaking.
neuroscience

To Learn More Quickly, Brain Cells Break Their DNA

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 30, 2021
Comment
Read Later

New work shows that neurons and other brain cells use DNA double-strand breaks, often associated with cancer, neurodegeneration and aging, to quickly express genes related to learning and memory.

An artist’s conception of the ways that functional capacities have been mapped to regions of the brain.
neuroscience

The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does

By Jordana Cepelewicz
August 24, 2021
Comment
Read Later

Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging.


Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • ...
  • 14
Next
The Quanta Newsletter

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox

Recent newsletters
Quanta Homepage
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram

  • About Quanta
  • Archive
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Simons Foundation
All Rights Reserved © 2023