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How Maxwell’s Demon Continues to Startle Scientists

April 22, 2021

The thorny thought experiment has been turned into a real experiment — one that physicists use to probe the physics of information.

DNA of Giant ‘Corpse Flower’ Parasite Surprises Biologists

April 21, 2021

The bizarre genome of the world’s most mysterious flowering plants shows how far parasites will go in stealing, deleting and duplicating DNA.

The Puzzling Power of Simple Arithmetic

April 20, 2021

Playing with arithmetic can lead us to unexpected and profound discoveries that point toward deeper mathematics and sometimes even deeper science.

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.

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