Abstractions blog

Tiny genetic sequences in a mother’s bacteria seem to hop into the infant's bacteria, perhaps ensuring a healthy microbiome later in life.

Random circuit sampling, a popular technique for showing the power of quantum computers, doesn’t scale up if errors go unchecked.

A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

The neural representations of a perceived image and the memory of it are almost the same. New work shows how and why they are different.

A quantum approach to data analysis that relies on the study of shapes will likely remain an example of a quantum advantage — albeit for increasingly unlikely scenarios.

Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

Researchers discover that to sharpen its control over precision maneuvers, the brain uses comparisons between control signals — not the signals themselves.

New research in fish suggests that gut microbes can have a crucial early influence on the brain’s social development.

Lattice cryptography promises to protect secrets from the attacks of far-future quantum computers.