Latest Articles

An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe

June 28, 2023

Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos.

What Can Jellyfish Teach Us About Fluid Dynamics?

June 28, 2023

Jellyfish and other aquatic creatures embody solutions to diverse problems in engineering, medicine and mathematics. John Dabiri, a fluid dynamics expert, talks with Steven Strogatz about what jellyfish can teach us about going with the flow.

How Math Achieved Transcendence

June 27, 2023

Transcendental numbers include famous examples like e and π, but it took mathematicians centuries to understand them.

The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities

June 26, 2023

New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts.

Computer Scientists Inch Closer to Major Algorithmic Goal

June 23, 2023

A new paper finds a faster method for determining when two mathematical groups are the same.

Mathematicians Discover Novel Way to Predict Structure in Graphs

June 22, 2023

Mathematicians probe the limits of randomness in new work estimating quantities called Ramsey numbers.

The Simple Geometry That Predicts Molecular Mosaics

June 21, 2023

By treating molecules as geometric tessellations, scientists devised a new way to forecast how 2D materials might self-assemble.

How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats

June 20, 2023

To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.

Neural Networks Need Data to Learn. Even If It’s Fake.

June 16, 2023

Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial intelligence systems.

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox