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Mating Contests Among Females, Long Ignored, May Shape Evolution
Showy male competitions over mating privileges have grabbed scientists’ attention more often, but new work hints that sexual selection is also widespread among females.
Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
Proof Assistant Makes Jump to Big-League Math
Mathematicians using the computer program Lean have verified the accuracy of a difficult theorem at the cutting edge of research mathematics.
A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change
A centuries-old concept in soil science has recently been thrown out. Yet it remains a key ingredient in everything from climate models to advanced carbon-capture projects.
The ‘Weirdest’ Matter, Made of Partial Particles, Defies Description
Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another.
How to Find Rational Points Like Your Job Depends on It
Using high school algebra and geometry, and knowing just one rational point on a circle or elliptic curve, we can locate infinitely many others.
Plasmid, Virus or Other? DNA ‘Borgs’ Blur Boundaries.
Scientists have reported large DNA structures in some archaea that defy easy categorization.
How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real
The root of today’s quantum revolution was John Stewart Bell’s 1964 theorem showing that quantum mechanics really permits instantaneous connections between far-apart locations.
New Shape Opens ‘Wormhole’ Between Numbers and Geometry
Laurent Fargues and Peter Scholze have found a new, more powerful way of connecting number theory and geometry as part of the sweeping Langlands program.