2020 in Review
Latest Articles
Why Aging May Be a Program, Not a Breakdown
By deciphering the molecular signatures of millions of mouse cells, Junyue Cao has found that aging is not haphazard wear and tear but rather a “remodeling of the cell society.”
Graduate Student Proves a Quantum Uncertainty Principle for Fractals
The math, which combines chaos, quantum theory, and infinitely complex fractal structures, has been called a “foundational result.”
Why Are Rivers So Mathematical?
A simple scaling law brings order to the chaos of flowing water, rock, and sediment. New findings have extended the law even further.
Neutrinos From Deep Inside Earth Provide a New Picture of the Mantle
A global constellation of neutrino detectors is creating a never-before-seen view of the radioactive elements that power Earth’s tectonic heat engine.
How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?
Neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor discusses efforts to understand how skin contact can be painful or pleasurable, and what touch-obsessed naked mole rats might teach us about human social behavior.
Corals Spin Tiny Vortices to Get Oxygen, but Not if It’s Too Hot
New research is helping biologists understand how an overlooked aspect of coral physiology may affect their fate under climate change.
Why the Legendary Erdős Problems Are Falling to AI
AI’s greatest mathematical successes have come from answers to problems posed by a mid-20th century iconoclast. By examining what makes the Erdős problems unique, mathematicians are trying to understand how AI might change the rest of math.
Is AI Reasoning Right for the Wrong Reasons?
The idea that artificial intelligence can “reason” is more intuitive than ever. But intuitions can be wrong, and the science is far from settled.
Physicists Solve a Big Quantum Mystery. Now, Old Results Don’t Add Up.
New calculations seem to have put a 25-year-old particle physics puzzle to rest. But they’ve also created a clash with other experimental results.