Latest Articles

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.

Q&A

The Scientist Who Decodes the Songs of Undersea Volcanoes

November 8, 2023

In the rumbles and groans of underwater volcanoes, Jackie Caplan-Auerbach finds her favorite harmonies — and clues to the Earth’s interior.

In the ‘Wild West’ of Geometry, Mathematicians Redefine the Sphere

November 7, 2023

High-dimensional spheres can have a much wider variety of structures than mathematicians thought possible.

Cryptographers Solve Decades-Old Privacy Problem

November 6, 2023

Three researchers have found a long-sought way to pull information from large databases secretly, moving us closer to fully private internet searches.

These Moons Are Dark and Frozen. So How Can They Have Oceans?

November 2, 2023

The moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn appear to have subsurface oceans — tantalizing targets in the search for life beyond Earth. But it’s not clear why these seas exist at all.

The Hidden Connection That Changed Number Theory

November 1, 2023

Quadratic reciprocity lurks around many corners in mathematics. By proving it, number theorists reimagined their whole field.

Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical and Social Worlds

October 31, 2023

New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the brain’s “place cells,” which are typically associated with location, to encode all kinds of environmental information.

A Brief History of Tricky Mathematical Tiling

October 30, 2023

The discovery earlier this year of the “hat” tile marked the culmination of hundreds of years of work into tiles and their symmetries.

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