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By Quanta Magazine
Susan Valot narrates in-depth news episodes based on Quanta Magazine's articles about mathematics, physics, biology and computer science.
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High-Temperature Supercondu...
02.01.2023
Physicists have all but confirmed the phenomenon behind the strongest known form of superconductivity.
A robot has, in all likelihood, leapt higher than any animal or machine before it on Earth.
The brain may be fearful and pessimistic by default.
A husband and wife math duo solved an algebraic question that went unanswered for more than a century.
The key to understanding the origin and fate of the universe may be a more complete understanding of the vacuum.
Scientists are beginning to grasp the biomechanics that allow birds to maneuver in the air.
Scientists are beginning to crack secrets from one of the sturdiest organic materials in nature.
A first-of-its-kind study offers a fresh perspective on what happens inside cells as they age.
Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Unanswered Questions" by Kevin MacLeod.
Mathematicians recently figured out a near-optimal way to go with the flow.
A graduate student recently proved Paul Erdős' conjecture about what makes the prime numbers particularly unique among primitive sets.
The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information.
Robots are about to venture into the sunless depths of lunar craters to investigate ancient water ice trapped there, while remote studies find hints about how water arrives on rocky worlds. Read more and explore infographics at quantamagazine.org.
Quantum field theory may be the most successful scientific theory of all time, but there's reason to think it's missing something. Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical physicist David Tong about this enigmatic theory.
For centuries, mathematicians have tried to prove that Euler's fluid equations can produce nonsensical answers. A new approach to machine learning has researchers betting that "blowup" is near. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is "Pulse" by Geographer.
The existence of secure cryptography depends on one of the oldest questions in computational complexity.
Dopamine, a neurochemical often associated with reward behavior, also seems to help organize precisely when the brain initiates movements. It's the latest revelation about the power of neuromodulators.
Biomechanical interactions, rather than neurons, control the movements of one of the simplest animals. The discovery offers a glimpse into how animal behavior worked before neurons evolved.
Dwarf galaxies weren't supposed to have big black holes. Their surprise discovery has revealed clues about how the universe's biggest black holes could have formed.
To explain "naturalness," physicists are rethinking some of their core assumptions about the way that nature works.
Researchers have mapped hundreds of semantic categories to the tiny bits of the cortex that represent them in our thoughts and perceptions. What they discovered might change our view of memory. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org.
Two teams have shown how quantum approaches can solve problems faster than classical computers, bringing physics and computer science closer together.
Just as plate tectonics makes sense of the geology and positions of continents, "genome tectonics" helps biologists reconstruct the genomic duplications, fusions and translocations that created the chromosomes we see today.
When the sun was 30% dimmer, Earth seems like it should have been inhospitably frozen, but new work suggests that dimness may be why life exists here at all.
By mapping in three dimensions how various mutations affect the fitness of the coronavirus, researchers can get insights into how the COVID-19 pandemic might change next.
New studies reveal the ancient, shared genetic "grammar" underpinning the diverse evolution of fish fins and tetrapod limbs. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Hidden Agenda" by Kevin MacLeod.
Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for some of the most difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned out to be just as difficult to solve, until now. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Aimless Amos" by Rondo ...
A new paper shows how to create longer disordered strings than mathematicians had thought possible, proving that a well-known recent conjecture is "spectacularly wrong." Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Transmission" by John Deley and the 41 Players.
By carefully constructing a multidimensional and well-connected graph, a team of researchers has finally created a long-sought locally testable code that can immediately reveal whether it's been corrupted. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Clover 3" by Vibe Mountain.
Scientists thought that the brain's hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Thought Bot" by Audionautix.
The molecular signaling systems of complex cells are nothing like simple electronic circuits. The logic governing their operation is riotously complex - but it has advantages. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Unanswered Questions" by Kevin MacLeod.
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Dark Toys" by SYBS.
For over two decades, physicists have pondered how the fabric of space-time may emerge from some kind of quantum entanglement. In Monika Schleier-Smith's lab at Stanford University, the thought experiment is becoming real. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Clover ...
Studies of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations - as well as insights into the nature of time itself. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Aimless Amos" by Rondo Brothers.
Familiar categories of mental functions such as perception, memory and attention reflect our experience of ourselves, but they are misleading about how the brain works. More revealing approaches are emerging. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Pulse" by Geographer.
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Cast of Pods" by Doug ...
For 50 years, mathematicians have believed that the total number of real numbers is unknowable. A new proof suggests otherwise. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Good Times" by Patrick Patrikios.
The DNA of some viruses doesn't use the same four nucleotide bases found in all other life. New work shows how this exception is possible and hints that it could be more common than we think. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. ...
The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Pulse" by Geographer.
New work suggests that the radiolytic splitting of water supports giant subsurface ecosystems of life on Earth - and could do it elsewhere, too. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Fire Water" by Saidbysed.
The bizarre genome of the world's most mysterious flowering plants shows how far parasites will go in stealing, deleting and duplicating DNA. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Who's Using Who" by the Mini Vandals.
New data indicating that Earth's surface broke up about 3.2 billion years ago helps clarify how plate tectonics drove the evolution of complex life. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Pulse" by Geographer.
An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Racing the Clock" by The Green ...
To the surprise of experts in the field, a postdoctoral statistician has solved one of the most important problems in high-dimensional convex geometry. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Transmission" by John Deley and the 41 Players.
A new proof demonstrates the power of arithmetic dynamics, an emerging discipline that combines insights from number theory and dynamical systems. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Pulse" by Geographer.
The learning algorithm that enables the runaway success of deep neural networks doesn't work in biological brains, but researchers are finding alternatives that could. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Telepathic Drive" by Unicorn Heads.
By digging out signals hidden within the brain's electrical chatter, scientists are getting new insights into sleep, aging and more. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Thought Bot" by Audionautix.
Small and cold, Mars has long been considered a dead planet. But a series of recent discoveries has forced scientists to rethink how recently its insides stopped churning - if they ever stopped at all. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music ...
Long considered solved, David Hilbert's question about seventh-degree polynomials is leading researchers to a new web of mathematical connections. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is "Confusing Disco" by Birocratic.
Small and cold, Mars has long been considered a dead planet. But a series of recent discoveries has forced scientists to rethink how recently its insides stopped churning — if they ever stopped at all. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music ...
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