Explainers
How AI Cracked the Protein Folding Code and Won a Nobel Prize
This is the inside story of how David Baker (pictured here), Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for advances in computer-assisted protein design and structure prediction.
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Urban Traffic and Complex Systems — Carlos Gershenson
Carlos Gershenson explains how principles of adaptation and self-organization can help transportation systems beat traffic jams and other urban mobility problems.
Emily Riehl Is Rewriting Higher Category Theory
By turning higher category theory on itself, Riehl hopes to make the powerful perspective more accessible to other mathematicians.
Emily Riehl: Mathematician, Musician, Educator
Riehl talks about how higher category theory is like the viola, why she’s drawn to expository writing, and the responsibility mathematicians have to address social justice issues.
Claudia de Rham: “Gravity Is the Law That Makes Everything Happen”
Claudia de Rham explains why gravity is so fundamental to our understanding of everything in the universe.
John Priscu and the Search for Life Under Ice
The microbial ecologist John Priscu of Montana State University discusses what led him to seek life beneath the barren, frozen wastes of Antarctica — and how his discoveries there are shaping the search for life on other worlds.
Liz MacDonald on the strangest auroras in the world.
Liz MacDonald discusses what more people should know about the auroras.
James Maynard Solves the Hardest Easy Math Problems
James Maynard talks about why he’s obsessed with prime numbers.
Katie Mack Knows How It’s All Going to End
Katie Mack describes the most likely scenario for the end of the universe.
Epidemiologist Tara Smith Answers Coronavirus Questions
Highlights from Tara C. Smith’s live YouTube event on May 1, 2020, in which she answered reader questions about the COVID-19 pandemic.