A New Proof Moves the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1917, the Japanese mathematician Sōichi Kakeya posed what at first seemed like nothing more than a fun exercise in …
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1917, the Japanese mathematician Sōichi Kakeya posed what at first seemed like nothing more than a fun exercise in …
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Of the 100 trillion neutrinos that pass through you every second, most come from the sun or Earth’s atmosphere. But …
At first glance, the grit crust could seem like a routine example of what researchers call a biological soil crust, or “biocrust”—a community of coexisting bacteria, fungi, algae, and other …
What is clear is that the brain must be able to accurately regulate how strong a mental image is to avoid confusion between fantasy and reality. “The brain has this …
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. So far this year, Quanta has chronicled three major advances in Ramsey theory, the study of how to avoid creating …
According to assembly theory, before Darwinian evolution can proceed, something has to select for multiple copies of high-AI objects from the Assembly Possible. Chemistry alone, Cronin said, might be capable …
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new measurement of the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together, confirms previous hints of an uncomfortable …
A dense rainforest or other verdant terrestrial vegetation may be what first comes to mind at the mention of photosynthesis. Yet the clouds of phytoplankton that fill the oceans are …
Meanwhile, Hanna’s team in Israel was growing mouse embryo models in a similar way, as they described in a paper in Cell that was published shortly before the paper from …
Memories are shadows of the past but also flashlights for the future. Our recollections guide us through the world, tune our attention, and shape what we learn later in life. …