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New research suggests physicists, computers and brains employ the same procedure to tease out important features from among other irrelevant bits of data.

All life on Earth is made of molecules that twist in the same direction. New research reveals that this may not always have been so.

Microscopic creatures called bdelloid rotifers have thrived without mating for millions of years. How they did it could reveal why sex is so essential for almost everyone else.

Early in cosmic history, our universe may have bumped into another — a primordial clash that could have left traces in the Big Bang’s afterglow.

Testing the multiverse hypothesis requires measuring whether our universe is statistically typical among the infinite variety of universes. But infinity does a number on statistics.

For five years physicists have been tantalized by possible evidence of dark matter in the Milky Way’s center. But new results from small satellite galaxies have complicated the story.

The same mental processes that organize memories may also coordinate how we make decisions.

A potent theory has emerged explaining a mysterious statistical law that arises throughout physics and mathematics.

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three researchers who discovered how the brain navigates the world. Their work may also help illuminate how the mind stores memories.