Abstractions blog

Two mathematicians have shown that origami can, in principle, be used to perform any possible computation.

Integer linear programming can help find the answer to a variety of real-world problems. Now researchers have found a much faster way to do it.

John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of every possible length.

As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know.

In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.

Biologists discovered that mitochondria in different tissues talk to each other to repair injured cells. When their signal fails, the biological clock starts winding down.

Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies?

For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync a biological clock to the phases of the moon.

Two researchers have improved a well-known technique for lattice basis reduction, opening up new avenues for practical experiments in cryptography and mathematics.