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A round blue spider with striped legs delicately attaches new silk thread across existing spokes in her web.

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Latest Articles

How Spiders Spin ‘Silk Dope’ Into Nature’s Toughest Material

By probing its molecular structure, biologists are uncovering how a tangle of unstructured proteins turns into a tough, flexible thread.

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How Voting Is Like a Klein Bottle

A new topological model connects a centuries-old voting paradox to a surface with no distinct inside or outside.

Malaria Parasite Caught in the Act of Breaking and Entering

To invade red blood cells, the deadly protist creates a temporary molecular portal that disappears behind it — a door we can now see in fine detail.

See Inside Cells Like Never Before in These Vivid Microscopic Images

Winning entries in the 2026 Nikon Small World competitions reveal the hidden interactions that govern everyday life.

AI Proved the Quasi-Riemann Hypothesis. What Happens Now?

Unlike other recent AI proofs, this one has been unpacked by human experts. The implications, one mathematician said, are “staggering.”

Man sitting on a green couch.

Triplet of ‘Ghostly’ Galaxies Hints at What Dark Matter Is — and Isn’t

A collision may have left these galaxies without dark matter. That spells trouble for alternative gravity theories.

Is ‘Attention’ the Essence of Intelligence?

A mathematical mechanism enables AI models to process language at scale, undergirding the current AI revolution. Our columnist asks: Why is attention the key?

How Does Life Unfold? A Landscape Metaphor Comes Into Its Own.

C.H. Waddington’s powerful image of embryonic stem cells specializing on a rolling landscape has captivated biologists since the 1950s. Experimental data is finally confirming, and complicating, his visionary ideas.

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The Navier-Stokes Equations, Explained

Emily Buder/Quanta Magazine and Emily Zhang

Special Features

The Joy of Why


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Evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers explains how fungal networks in soil trade nutrients with plants, help keep carbon underground, and strike bargains without having a brain.

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How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?

Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others.

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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.

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Quanta Magazine is committed to in-depth, accurate journalism that serves the public interest. Each article braids the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling and is meticulously reported, edited and fact-checked. Launched and funded by the Simons Foundation, Quanta is editorially independent — our articles do not reflect or represent the views of the foundation.

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