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The Quanta Podcast

Every Tuesday, editor in chief Samir Patel sits down with writers and editors to discuss our most thought-provoking stories in science and math. Audio editions of Quanta’s stories with Susan Valot will appear biweekly on Thursdays.

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With Fifth Busy Beaver, Researchers Approach Computation’s Limits

New ‘Superdiffusion’ Proof Probes the Mysterious Math of Turbulence

Concept Cells Help Your Brain Abstract Information and Build Memories

An illustration of a key, decorated with a mitochondrion, stuck into the back of a wind-up bird.

‘Turbocharged’ Mitochondria Power Birds’ Epic Migratory Journeys

Singularities in Space-Time Prove Hard to Kill

a snowflake surrounded by fire

Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case.

For Algorithms, a Little Memory Outweighs a Lot of Time

Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI

Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way.

An illustration shows a human brain. Colorful flowers and plants burst from the left side, while wires and computing notes innervate the right side.

AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK

Introducing The Quanta Podcast

Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold

Fish swimming with outlined brains and microbes within them

Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too?

Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound

An illustration of concentric rings of a radiating wave in space, with chopsticks that appear poised to pluck a particle out of the wave.

It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All

An illustration shows zero lit by spotlight; it flickers in a cave that looks like a brain.

How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero