Archive

The biochemist Nick Lane thinks life first evolved in hydrothermal vents where precursors of metabolism appeared before genetic information. His ideas could lead us to think differently about aging and cancer.

The solutions to Einstein’s equations that describe a spinning black hole won’t blow up, even when poked or prodded.

Partnerships between engineers and biologists have begun to reveal how birds evolved their superb maneuverability.

Christopher Kanan is building algorithms that can continuously learn over time — the way we do.

A hidden link has been found between two seemingly unrelated particle collision outcomes. It’s the latest example of a mysterious web of mathematical connections between disparate theories of physics.

Readers balanced logical reasoning and mathematical insights to find phony coins with a double-pan balance scale.

Perineuronal nets, rigid structures that hold certain neurons in place, affect a surprising amount of brain activity, including some associated with chronic pain.

Everybody gets older, but not everyone ages in the same way. In this episode, Steven Strogatz speaks with Judith Campisi and Dena Dubal, two biomedical researchers who study the aging process.

New research finds that chaos plays a bigger role in population dynamics than decades of ecological data seemed to suggest.