Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers explains how fungal networks in soil trade nutrients with plants, help keep carbon underground, and strike bargains without having a brain.
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How Voting Is Like a Klein Bottle
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A new topological model connects a centuries-old voting paradox to a surface with no distinct inside or outside.
Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering
To invade red blood cells, the deadly protist creates a temporary molecular portal that disappears behind it — a door we can now see in fine detail.
See Inside Cells Like Never Before in These Vivid Microscopic Images
Winning entries in the 2026 Nikon Small World competitions reveal the hidden interactions that govern everyday life.
AI Proved the Quasi-Riemann Hypothesis. What Happens Now?
Unlike other recent AI proofs, this one has been unpacked by human experts. The implications, one mathematician said, are “staggering.”
He Wants AI Benchmarking To Be a Science, Not a Dark Art
Moritz Hardt, author of a new book on benchmarks, believes these “standardized tests” for artificial intelligence are fundamentally broken — but not unfixable.
Is ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence?
A mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?
How Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own.
C.H. Waddington’s powerful image of embryonic stem cells specializing on a rolling landscape has captivated biologists since the 1950s. Experimental data is finally confirming, and complicating, his visionary ideas.
As AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
In the shadow of a rumored AI proof of one of the biggest problems in their field, three computer scientists rushed to publish their own milestone result.
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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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