Explainers

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time, space-time itself can sometimes be two things at once.

Machines work with words by embedding their relationships with other words in a string of numbers.

In this article adapted from his new book, "Waves in an Impossible Sea," physicist Matt Strassler explains that the origin of mass in the universe has a lot to do with music.

Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.

Proteins are often visualized as cascades of curled ribbons and twisted strings, which both reveal and conceal the mess of atoms that make up these impossibly complex molecules.

Tensors are used all over math and science to reveal hidden geometric truths. What are they?

Long explored but infrequently embraced, base 3 computing may yet find a home in cybersecurity.

You don’t need 0s and 1s to perform computations, and in some cases it’s better to avoid them.