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The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens’ Deep Histories
Sébastien Calvignac-Spencer searches museum jars for genetic traces of flu, measles and other viruses. Their evolutionary stories can help treat modern outbreaks and prepare for future ones.
Are Robots About to Level Up?
Today’s AI largely lives in computers, but acting and reacting in the real world — that’s the realm of robots. In this week’s episode, co-host Steven Strogatz talks with pioneering roboticist Daniela Rus about creativity, collaboration, and the unusual forms robots of the future might take.
The Webb Telescope Further Deepens the Biggest Controversy in Cosmology
A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something.
The Geometric Tool That Solved Einstein’s Relativity Problem
Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they?
How Base 3 Computing Beats Binary
Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity.
Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect
Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model.
Grad Students Find Inevitable Patterns in Big Sets of Numbers
A new proof marks the first progress in decades on a problem about how order emerges from disorder.
What Is Analog Computing?
You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.
What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images
Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences.