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cryptography

How Do You Prove a Secret?

By Sheon Han
October 11, 2022
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Zero-knowledge proofs allow researchers to prove their knowledge without divulging the knowledge itself.

Drawing of a man connected by viruses to mice, horses, camels and more animals
Quantized Columns

What We Know About Monkeypox

By Tara C. Smith
September 29, 2022
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Even though we’ve learned a lot about this relative of smallpox, some mysteries remain due to a lack of political will.

A spacecraft, laptop, QR code and CD
information theory

How Mathematical Curves Enable Advanced Communication

By Jordana Cepelewicz
September 19, 2022
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A simple geometric idea has been used to power advances in information theory, cryptography and even blockchain technology.

A frog leaps out of the frame of the video.
biomechanics

Record-Breaking Robot Highlights How Animals Excel at Jumping

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
September 14, 2022
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Robots can surpass the limitations on how high and far animals can jump, but their success only underscores nature’s ingenuity in making the most of what’s available.

Illustration of thumbs flipping coins.
information theory

How Shannon Entropy Imposes Fundamental Limits on Communication

By Kevin Hartnett
September 6, 2022
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What’s a message, really? Claude Shannon recognized that the elemental ingredient is surprise.

An illustration that includes a triangular network overlaid by images of spinning particles.
explainers

The Spooky Quantum Phenomenon You’ve Never Heard Of

By Katie McCormick
June 22, 2022
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Quantum computers may derive their power from the “magical” way that properties of particles change depending on the context.

computational complexity

How Computer Scientists Learned to Reinvent the Proof

By Mordechai Rorvig
May 23, 2022
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Why verify every line of a proof, when just a few checks will do?

Illustration of a wooly mammoth with its hind quarters still being assembled from digital blocks.
explainers

Why ‘De-Extinction’ Is Impossible (But Could Work Anyway)

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
May 9, 2022
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Several projects are aiming to bring back mammoths and other species that have vanished from the planet. Whether that’s technically possible is beside the point.

Illustration of a red human figured amid blue silhouettes of animals, in front of a red background.
Quantized Columns

What Happens When We Give Animals Our Diseases?

By Tara C. Smith
April 27, 2022
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While it’s understandable to focus on the diseases affecting humans, it’s important to study how our illnesses may affect animals.


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