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Mathematics Shows How to Ensure Evolution

June 26, 2018

New results emerging from graph theory prove that the way a population is organized can guarantee the eventual triumph of natural selection — or permanently thwart it.

Real-Life Schrödinger’s Cats Probe the Boundary of the Quantum World

June 25, 2018

Recent experiments have put relatively large objects into quantum states, illuminating the processes by which the ordinary world emerges out of the quantum one.

Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve

June 21, 2018

Computer scientists have been searching for years for a type of problem that a quantum computer can solve but that any possible future classical computer cannot. Now they’ve found one.

Theory Suggests That All Genes Affect Every Complex Trait

June 20, 2018

The more closely geneticists look at complex traits and diseases, the harder it gets to find active genes that don’t play some part in them.

Q&A

Her Key to Modeling Brains: Ignore the Right Details

June 19, 2018

Being able to think like a physicist helps Carina Curto, a mathematician-turned-neuroscientist, pull insights about the human brain out of theoretical models.

Four Is Not Enough

June 18, 2018

How many colors do you need to color an infinite plane so that no points 1 unit apart are the same color?

Brains May Teeter Near Their Tipping Point

June 14, 2018

In a renewed attempt at a grand unified theory of brain function, physicists now argue that brains optimize performance by staying near — though not exactly at — the critical point between two phases.

Too Small for Big Muscles, Tiny Animals Use Springs

June 13, 2018

Elastic springs help tiny animals stay fast and strong. New work is finding what size critters must be to benefit from the springs.

The Universe Is Not a Simulation, but We Can Now Simulate It

June 12, 2018

Computer simulations have become so accurate that cosmologists can now use them to study dark matter, supermassive black holes and other mysteries of the real evolving cosmos.

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