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In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge

November 21, 2023

Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand.

Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit

November 13, 2023

Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.

Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better

November 9, 2023

The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics.

Echoes of Electromagnetism Found in Number Theory

October 12, 2023

A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism.

Tiny Language Models Come of Age

October 5, 2023

To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler versions on synthetic children’s stories.

Behold Modular Forms, the ‘Fifth Fundamental Operation’ of Math

September 21, 2023

Modular forms are one of the most beautiful and mysterious objects in mathematics. What are they?

What Makes Life Tick? Mitochondria May Keep Time for Cells

September 18, 2023

Every species develops at its own unique tempo, leaving scientists to wonder what governs their timing. A suite of new findings suggests that cells use basic metabolic processes as clocks.

An Old Conjecture Falls, Making Spheres a Lot More Complicated

August 22, 2023

The telescope conjecture gave mathematicians a handle on ways to map one sphere to another. Now that it has been disproved, the universe of shapes has exploded.

JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe

August 14, 2023

Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts.

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