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Karen Miga Fills In the Missing Pieces of Our Genome

September 8, 2021

Driven by her fascination with highly repetitive, hard-to-read parts of our DNA, Karen Miga led a coalition of researchers to finish sequencing the human genome after almost two decades.

One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles

September 7, 2021

For over two decades, physicists have pondered how the fabric of space-time may emerge from some kind of quantum entanglement. In Monika Schleier-Smith’s lab at Stanford University, the thought experiment is becoming real.

How Computationally Complex Is a Single Neuron?

September 2, 2021

Computational neuroscientists taught an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. The result offers a new way to think about the complexity of single brain cells.

The Complex Truth About ‘Junk DNA’

September 1, 2021

Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda.

The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks

August 31, 2021

Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.

To Learn More Quickly, Brain Cells Break Their DNA

August 30, 2021

New work shows that neurons and other brain cells use DNA double-strand breaks, often associated with cancer, neurodegeneration and aging, to quickly express genes related to learning and memory.

Banach-Tarski and the Paradox of Infinite Cloning

August 26, 2021

One of the strangest results in mathematics explains how it’s possible to turn one sphere into two identical copies, simply by rearranging its pieces.

Math Can, in Theory, Help You Escape a Hungry Bear

August 25, 2021

How readers used their geometry skills to survive a dangerous puzzle.

The Brain Doesn’t Think the Way You Think It Does

August 24, 2021

Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging.

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