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Melanie Mitchell Takes AI Research Back to Its Roots

April 19, 2021

To build a general artificial intelligence, we may need to know more about our own minds, argues the computer scientist Melanie Mitchell.

Latest Neural Nets Solve World’s Hardest Equations Faster Than Ever Before

April 19, 2021

Two new approaches allow deep neural networks to solve entire families of partial differential equations, making it easier to model complicated systems and to do so orders of magnitude faster.

The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations

April 15, 2021

Some populations of neurons simultaneously process sensations and memories. New work shows how the brain rotates those representations to prevent interference.

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The New Historian of the Smash That Made the Himalayas

April 14, 2021

About 60 million years ago, India plowed into Eurasia and pushed up the Himalayas. But when Lucía Pérez-Díaz reconstructed the event in detail, she found that its central mystery depended on a broken geological clock.

How Radio Astronomy Reveals the Universe

April 13, 2021

Radio waves, longer and less energetic than visible light, give astronomers access to some of the most obscure physics in the cosmos.

Trachette Jackson Fights Cancer With Math

April 12, 2021

Quantitative models built by the mathematical biologist Trachette Jackson can make cancer therapies safer and more effective.

Mathematician Disproves 80-Year-Old Algebra Conjecture

April 12, 2021

Inside the symmetries of a crystal shape, a postdoctoral researcher has unearthed a counterexample to a basic conjecture about multiplicative inverses.

New Genomic Study of Placenta Finds Deep Links to Cancer

April 8, 2021

A patchwork of genomic differences in the placenta may explain the organ’s “live fast, die young” strategy and its connections to cancer.

‘Last Hope’ Experiment Finds Evidence for Unknown Particles

April 7, 2021

Today’s long-anticipated announcement by Fermilab’s Muon g-2 team appears to solidify a tantalizing conflict between nature and theory. But a separate calculation, published at the same time, has clouded the picture.

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