Latest Articles
Tight-Knit Microbes Live Together to Make a Vital Nutrient
At sea, biologists discovered microbial partners that together produce nitrogen, a nutrient essential for life. The pair are in the process of merging into a single organism.
‘Sensational’ Proof Delivers New Insights Into Prime Numbers
The proof creates stricter limits on potential exceptions to the famous Riemann hypothesis.
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly?
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle.
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
What Is Machine Learning?
Neural networks and other forms of machine learning ultimately learn by trial and error, one improvement at a time.
What Can Tiling Patterns Teach Us?
If you cover a surface with tiles, repetitive patterns always emerge — or do they? In this week’s episode, mathematician Natalie Priebe Frank and co-host Janna Levin discuss how recent breakthroughs in tiling can unlock structural secrets in the natural world.
With Fifth Busy Beaver, Researchers Approach Computation’s Limits
After decades of uncertainty, a motley team of programmers has proved precisely how complicated simple computer programs can get.
Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a critical missing piece of the galactic puzzle.
Why Is This Shape So Terrible to Pack?
Two mathematicians have proved a long-standing conjecture that is a step on the way toward finding the worst shape for packing the plane.