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Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model.

Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences.

Cryptography is the thread that connects Julius Caesar, World War II and quantum computing, and it now lies under nearly every part of modern life. In this week’s episode, computer scientist Boaz Barak and co-host Janna Levin discuss the past and future of secrecy.

Common sense has been viewed as one of the hardest challenges in AI. That said, ChatGPT4 has acquired what some believe is an impressive sense of humanity. How is this possible? Listen to this week’s “The Joy of Why” with co-host Steven Strogatz.

Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle.

After decades of uncertainty, a motley team of programmers has proved precisely how complicated simple computer programs can get.

Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems.

New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.

Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.