Richard Prum explains why he thinks feathers and vibrant traits in birds evolved not solely for survival, but also through aesthetic choice.
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Monster Neutrino Could Be a Messenger of Ancient Black Holes
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Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has some physicists wondering if we just spotted one.
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Researchers recorded the neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania.
Two Twisty Shapes Resolve a Centuries-Old Topology Puzzle
The Bonnet problem asks when just a bit of information is enough to uniquely identify a whole surface.
Why There’s No Single Best Way To Store Information
The math of data structures helps us understand how different storage systems come with different trade-offs between resources such as time and memory.
String Theory Can Now Describe a Universe That Has Dark Energy
In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion.
Using AI, Mathematicians Find Hidden Glitches in Fluid Equations
A $1 million prize awaits anyone who can show where the math of fluid flow breaks down. With specially trained AI systems, researchers have found a slew of new candidates in simpler versions of the problem.
Distinct AI Models Seem To Converge On How They Encode Reality
Is the inside of a vision model at all like a language model? Researchers argue that as the models grow more powerful, they may be converging toward a singular “Platonic” way to represent the world.
In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything
Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation.
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