Archive

In the “underground economy” for soil nutrients, fungi strike hard bargains and punish plants that won’t meet their price.

Iyad Rahwan’s radical idea: The best way to understand algorithms is to observe their behavior in the wild.

The theoretical particle physicist Ann Nelson, who died on August 4 at age 61, was a font of brilliant ideas and a champion of ending discrimination in the field.

Mathematicians and neuroscientists have created the first anatomically accurate model that explains how vision is possible.

Does objective, perfect randomness exist, or is randomness merely a product of our ignorance?

Researchers agree it’s a long shot, but transmissible cancers could theoretically evolve into independent species. Certain weird parasites might be living proof.

How do black holes merge and make gravitational waves? Maybe with a little help from their friends.

The ancient Greeks wondered when “irrational” numbers can be approximated by fractions. By proving the longstanding Duffin-Schaeffer conjecture, two mathematicians have provided a complete answer.

Polynomials aren’t just exercises in abstraction. They’re good at illuminating structure in surprising places.