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Gas Giants’ Energy Crisis Solved After 50 Years

June 22, 2021

Jupiter and Saturn should be freezing cold. Instead, they’re hot. Researchers now know why.

Secret Workings of Smell Receptors Revealed for First Time

June 21, 2021

Researchers have finally seen how some smell receptors bind to odor molecules. The work yields new insights into one of the most mysterious and versatile senses.

Mathematicians Prove 2D Version of Quantum Gravity Really Works

June 17, 2021

In three towering papers, a team of mathematicians has worked out the details of Liouville quantum field theory, a two-dimensional model of quantum gravity.

How Animals Color Themselves With Nanoscale Structures

June 16, 2021

Animals sculpt the optical properties of their tissues at the nanoscale to give themselves “structural colors.” New work is piecing together how they do it.

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The Materials Scientist Who Studies the Innards of Exoplanets

June 15, 2021

Federica Coppari uses the world’s most powerful laser to recreate the cores of distant worlds.

Graphene Superconductors May Be Less Exotic Than Physicists Hoped

June 14, 2021

Superconductivity has been discovered in graphene devices without any twists, suggesting the form of superconductivity in the material might be mundane after all.

The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve

June 10, 2021

The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.

DNA Jumps Between Animal Species. No One Knows How Often.

June 9, 2021

The discovery of a gene shared by two unrelated species of fish is the latest evidence that horizontal gene transfers occur surprisingly often in vertebrates.

What Makes Quantum Computing So Hard to Explain?

June 8, 2021

To understand what quantum computers can do — and what they can’t — avoid falling for overly simple explanations.

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