The topologist Danny Calegari discusses the inevitability of disappointment in math, and how to learn from it.

New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.

Optical neural networks, which use photons instead of electrons, have advantages over traditional systems. They also face major obstacles.

Alex Sushkov is updating an old technology with new quantum tricks in hopes of sensing the magnetic influence of dark matter.

By making use of randomness, a team has created a simple algorithm for estimating large numbers of distinct objects in a stream of data.

Mathematicians have disproved a major conjecture about the relationship between curvature and shape.

How do immature egg cells maintain genetic quality for decades before they mature? Scientists find unusual safeguards in this quiescent cell that may inform research into fertility.

Researchers are drawing on ideas from game theory to improve large language models and make them more consistent.

Scientists are pursuing materials that can conduct electricity with perfect efficiency under ambient conditions. In this episode, the physicist Siddharth Shanker Saxena tells co-host Janna Levin about what makes this hunt so difficult and consequential.