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.

The post New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Two teams have shown how quantum approaches can solve problems faster than classical computers, bringing physics and computer science closer together.

The post Machine Learning Gets a Quantum Speedup first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Large blocks of genes conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution hint at how the first animal chromosomes came to be.

The post Secrets of Early Animal Evolution Revealed by Chromosome ‘Tectonics’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.

The post A Solution to the Faint-Sun Paradox Reveals a Narrow Window for Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Studies that map the adaptive value of viral mutations hint at how the COVID-19 pandemic might progress next.

The post Evolution ‘Landscapes’ Predict What’s Next for COVID Virus first appeared on Quanta Magazine

New studies reveal the ancient, shared genetic “grammar” underpinning the diverse evolution of fish fins and tetrapod limbs.

The post Flying Fish and Aquarium Pets Yield Secrets of Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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.

The post Mathematicians Outwit Hidden Number Conspiracy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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.”

The post Mathematician Hurls Structure and Disorder Into Century-Old Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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 betray whether it’s been corrupted.

The post Researchers Defeat Randomness to Create Ideal Code first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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.

The post The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel With Other Sounds first appeared on Quanta Magazine