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Biodiversity May Thrive Through Games of Rock-Paper-Scissors

March 5, 2020

Recent findings add weight to the evidence that the intransitive competitions between species enrich the diversity of nature.

Landmark Computer Science Proof Cascades Through Physics and Math

March 4, 2020

Computer scientists established a new boundary on computationally verifiable knowledge. In doing so, they solved major open problems in quantum mechanics and pure mathematics.

Janna Levin on Seeing and Hearing Black Holes

March 3, 2020

The astrophysicist Janna Levin describes the fierce scientific beauty she finds in black holes and reveals why she took a major risk early in her career.

Q&A

The Man Making Rwanda Into a Hub for Physics

March 3, 2020

As the founding director of a new institute for fundamental research in Rwanda, the physicist Omololu Akin-Ojo hopes to stem the brain drain of Africa’s brightest minds.

How the Cosmic Dark Ages Snuffed Out All Light

March 2, 2020

The recent discovery of some of the first galaxies in the universe illuminates the darkest era in cosmic history.

Wormholes Reveal a Way to Manipulate Black Hole Information in the Lab

February 27, 2020

A proposal for building wormhole-connected black holes offers a way to probe the paradoxes of quantum information.

New Wrinkle Added to Cosmology’s Hubble Crisis

February 26, 2020

A problem confronts cosmology: Two independent measurements of the universe’s expansion give incompatible answers. Now a third method, advanced by an astronomy pioneer, appears to bridge the divide.

John Urschel: From NFL Player to Mathematician

February 25, 2020

John Urschel, who retired from playing professional football with the Baltimore Ravens to become a mathematician, talks to host Steven Strogatz about the fascinations of graph theory that lured him away from the NFL.

The Animal Origins of Coronavirus and Flu

February 25, 2020

Zoonotic diseases like influenza and many coronaviruses start out in animals, but their biological machinery often enables them to jump to humans.

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