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Q&A
Life’s Big Leaps: Critical Moments in Evolution
The Woman Who Stared at Wasps
The biologist Joan Strassmann discusses cooperation in social insects, how amoebas can teach us about competition, and why the definition of “organism” needs an overhaul.
Q&A
Searching the Sky for the Wobbles of Gravity
The physicist Gabriela González is on the cusp of finding the first direct evidence of gravitational waves — soundlike wobbles in space-time produced by black holes and their kin.
Q&A
An Explorer of Life’s Deepest Partnerships
The biologist Nancy Moran has spent a career investigating the surprising nature of symbiosis, a phenomenon in which two species can appear to merge into one.
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The Case for Complex Dark Matter
The physicist James Bullock explains how a complicated “dark sector” of interacting particles may illuminate some puzzling observations of the centers of galaxies.
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The Connoisseur of Number Sequences
For more than 50 years, the mathematician Neil Sloane has curated the authoritative collection of interesting and important integer sequences.
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Decoding the Remarkable Algorithms of Ants
The biologist Deborah Gordon has uncovered how ant colonies search efficiently without central organization, an insight that might improve computer networks.
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A Private View of Quantum Reality
Quantum theorist Christopher Fuchs explains how to solve the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. His price: physics gets personal.
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Concerns of an Artificial Intelligence Pioneer
Computer scientist Stuart Russell wants to ensure that our increasingly intelligent machines remain aligned with human values.
Q&A
After Prime Proof, an Unlikely Star Rises
Two years ago, Yitang Zhang was virtually unknown. Now his surprise solution to a major problem in number theory has catapulted him to mathematical stardom. Where does he go from here?