Archive

Field research suggests a new explanation for the synchronized flashing in fireflies and confirms that a novel form of “chimeric” synchrony occurs naturally.

A simple geometric idea has been used to power advances in information theory, cryptography and even blockchain technology.

A custom-built machine learning algorithm can predict when a complex system is about to switch to a wildly different mode of behavior.

Robots can surpass the limitations on how high and far animals can jump, but their success only underscores nature’s ingenuity in making the most of what’s available.

Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, has a vision for bringing “joyous, beautiful math” — and problem-solving — to classrooms everywhere.

Neural networks originally designed for language processing turn out to be great models of how our brains understand places.

Physicists have discovered that the ring of photons orbiting a black hole exhibits a special kind of symmetry, hinting at a deeper meaning.

When the brain encodes memories as positive or negative, one molecule determines which way they will go.

What’s a message, really? Claude Shannon recognized that the elemental ingredient is surprise.