Archive

Computer scientists this year learned how to transmit perfect secrets, why transformers seem so good at everything, and how to improve on decades-old algorithms (with a little help from AI).

Momentum for new ideas in Alzheimer’s research joined advances in neuroscience, developmental biology and origin-of-life studies to make 2022 a memorable year of biological insights.

The buckminsterfullerene revolution never came, but some researchers are eagerly exploring the properties of newfound carbon crystals known as fullertubes.

The ecologist Holly Moeller studies microorganisms that expand their range by absorbing organelles and gaining new metabolic talents from their prey.

Mathematicians predicted that if they imposed enough restrictions on how a shape might tile space, they could force a periodic pattern to emerge. But they were wrong.

The neural representations of a perceived image and the memory of it are almost the same. New work shows how and why they are different.

Making sure our machines understand the intent behind our instructions is an important problem that requires understanding intelligence itself.

By using fluids to model inaccessible realms of the cosmos, Silke Weinfurtner is “looking for a deeper truth beyond one system.” But what can such experiments teach us?

If plaques of amyloid protein in the brain aren’t the root cause of Alzheimer’s disease, what is?