Archive

Most every cosmologist believes the universe is flat. A new analysis argues that it’s closed.

New work on the problem of “scissors congruence” explains when it’s possible to slice up one shape and reassemble it as another.

Singing experiments with residents of the Bolivian rainforest demonstrate how biology and experience shape the way we hear music.

A close look at fundamental symmetries has exposed hidden patterns in the universe. Physicists think that those same symmetries may also reveal time’s original secret.

How do magnetars get so magnetic? A study of stellar explosions shows that the long-accepted theory might be wrong.

While we sleep, one kind of slow brain wave helps to reinforce memories, but a competing wave weakens them.

Today Google announced that it achieved “quantum supremacy.” Its chief quantum computing rival, IBM, said it hasn’t. The disagreement hinges on what the term really means.

Researchers have discovered a surprising mathematical relationship in the brain’s representations of sensory information, with possible applications to AI research.

A major advance toward solving the 60-year-old sunflower conjecture is shedding light on how order begins to appear as random systems grow in size.