Archive

A new algorithm brings together the advantages of randomness and deterministic processes to reliably construct large prime numbers.

Abnormal waves of electrical activity can cause a heart’s muscle cells to beat out of sync. In this episode, Flavio Fenton, an expert in cardiac dynamics, talks with Steve Strogatz about ways to treat heart arrhythmias without resorting to painful defibrillators.

Extreme microorganisms carpeting the Atacama Desert in Chile illuminate how life might have first taken hold on Earth’s surface.

A new proof marks major progress toward solving the Kakeya conjecture, a deceptively simple question that underpins a tower of conjectures.

For decades, physicists have struggled to develop a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity — and space-time — are fundamentally classical?

Mathematicians can often figure out what happens as quantities grow infinitely large. What about when they are just a little big?

Ana Caraiani and James Newton have extended an important result in number theory to the imaginary realm.

New research reveals how marine microbes use an extra membrane that once had digestive functions to boost their yield from photosynthesis.

Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps make the neutrinos useful for exploring fundamental physics.