Abstractions blog

Recent progress on the “sum product” problem recalls a celebrated mathematical result that revealed the power of miniature number systems.

With the help of deep learning techniques, paleoanthropologists find evidence of long-lost branches on the human family tree.

Among these cave insects, the females evolved to have penises — twice. The reasons challenge common assumptions about sex.

Biologists have demonstrated for the first time that a controversial genetic engineering technology works, with caveats, in mammals.

Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.

Jellyfish didn’t need novel genes to take an evolutionary leap in complexity.

A primordial developmental toolkit shared by all vertebrates, and described by a theory of the mathematician Alan Turing, sets the growth pattern for all types of skin structures.

Digital security depends on the difficulty of factoring large numbers. A new proof shows why one method for breaking digital encryption won’t work.

Neither animal, plant, fungus nor familiar protozoan, a strange microbe that sits in its own “supra-kingdom” of life foretells incredible biodiversity yet to be discovered by new sequencing technologies.