Archive

Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors.

The Zoomable Universe, a new book by the astrobiologist Caleb Scharf, the illustrator Ron Miller and 5W Infographics, tours the universe’s 62 orders of magnitude.

When equipped with hidden layers, deep neural networks can accomplish nonlinear feats that are difficult even with sophisticated mathematics.

Which mattered first at the dawn of life: proteins or nucleic acids? Proteins may have had the edge if a theorized process let them grow long enough to become self-replicating catalysts.

And not destroy humanity in the process.

By reimagining the kinks and folds of origami as atoms in a lattice, researchers are uncovering strange behavior hiding in simple structures.

The core of a neutron star is such an extreme environment that physicists can’t agree on what happens inside. But a new space-based experiment — and a few more colliding neutron stars — should reveal whether neutrons themselves break down.

If you didn't get a flu shot, you are endangering more than just your own health. Calculations of herd immunity against common diseases don't make exceptions.

Newly discovered “standard sirens” provide an independent, clean way to measure how fast the universe is expanding.