Explainers

Tracie Seimon of the WCS’s Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory describes her biodiversity research, which is based on eDNA — DNA collected from the environment.

Narayanan discusses his work on de-anonymization and fairness and why it
matters.

The phenomenon of criticality can explain the sudden emergence of new properties in a wide range of complex systems, from avalanches to flocks of birds to stock market crashes. Neuroscientists are now seeking evidence that criticality is at work in the brain’s networks of neurons.

In 2022, mathematicians solved a centuries-old geometry question, proved the best way to minimize the surface area of clusters of up to five bubbles and proved a sweeping statement about how structure emerges in random sets and graphs.

Wormholes were first envisioned almost a century ago, but it would take a number of theoretical leaps and a “crazy” team of experimentalists to build one on a quantum computer.

Daniel Larsen wouldn’t let go of an old question about Carmichael numbers. “It was just stubbornness on my part,” he said.

Richard Rusczyk, founder of Art of Problem Solving, discusses how to bring out the joy, creativity and beauty in math.

Condensed matter physics is the most active field of contemporary physics and has yielded some of the biggest breakthroughs of the past century.  Now for the first time, Jie Shan and Fai Mak, a husband-and-wife team at Cornell University, have figured out a way to create artificial atoms in the lab, opening the door to a new era in research.

As an evolutionary biochemist at University College London, Nick Lane explores the deep mystery of how life evolved on Earth. His hypothesis that life started with primitive metabolic reactions in deep-sea hydrothermal vents illuminates the outsized role that energy may have played in shaping evolution.