What Breaks a Cell’s Ribs Can Make It Stronger The cells of animals, plants, and fungi start their lives by being torn apart. Cells are born by division, and just before a parent cell becomes two daughters, it doubles its nuclear DNA and carefully condenses it into X-shaped chromosomes. The nucleus disassembles, letting these crucial genetic instructions float free in the cell’s soupy interior. Then the cell performs an astounding… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

What Breaks a Cell’s Ribs Can Make It Stronger | Quanta Magazine

The mechanical process of cell division exerts powerful, if microscopic, forces. How do the molecular machines that power it manage the strain?

Quanta Magazine

What Breaks a Cell’s Ribs Can Make It Stronger | Quanta Magazine

The mechanical process of cell division exerts powerful, if microscopic, forces. How do the molecular machines that power it manage the strain?

After 80 Years, Mathematicians Give Famed ‘Erdős Method’ an Upgrade In 1947, Paul Erdős, the itinerant Hungarian mathematician, introduced what would become one of math’s most powerful tools. He wanted to prove that a certain kind of object existed — in this case, a network made of interconnected nodes. But strangely, his proof didn’t specify how to build it. Instead, he showed that if you consider all networks and select one at random, the chances that you’ll… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

After 80 Years, Mathematicians Give Famed ‘Erdős Method’ an Upgrade | Quanta Magazine

Decades ago, Paul Erdős used randomness to illuminate the vast and weird world of networks. Now mathematicians are making his technique even more ...

Quanta Magazine

After 80 Years, Mathematicians Give Famed ‘Erdős Method’ an Upgrade | Quanta Magazine

Decades ago, Paul Erdős used randomness to illuminate the vast and weird world of networks. Now mathematicians are making his technique even more ...

What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere? What links certain mathematical models of traffic flow, shallow-water waves, and quantum particle scattering? The surprising answer lies in a corner of the algebraic combinatorics world that goes by the name of positive Grassmannian. In simple terms, the positive Grassmannian is a shape that classifies other shapes. Remarkably, pieces of the positive Grassmannian can be reassembled in forms that… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere? | Quanta Magazine

Lauren Williams tells ‘The Joy of Why’ how studying a fundamental object in algebraic combinatorics led to a career full of surprises.

Quanta Magazine

What Is the Positive Grassmannian and Why Does It Show Up Everywhere? | Quanta Magazine

Lauren Williams tells ‘The Joy of Why’ how studying a fundamental object in algebraic combinatorics led to a career full of surprises.

How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino Seventy years ago, the physicists Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines took a custom-built 10-ton detector, surrounded it with thick lead walls and wet sandbags, and placed it near a powerful nuclear reactor at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. They called the experiment “Project Poltergeist,” designed as it was to catch a ghost. More than a quarter of a century before… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino | Quanta Magazine

The hunt for these ghostly particles has required some of the most audacious experimental setups ever built.

Quanta Magazine

How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino | Quanta Magazine

The hunt for these ghostly particles has required some of the most audacious experimental setups ever built.

A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great Unknowns For those who see the world as a dark place, the universe seems to offer little solace. According to current estimates, approximately 70% of the stuff that makes up the cosmos consists of dark energy, an unknown force that pushes space to expand. And another 25% consists of dark matter, a mysterious material that holds galaxies together. But semantically speaking, dark energy and dark matter are… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great Unknowns | Quanta Magazine

Recent observations suggest that dark energy is changing over time. Theorists wonder if dark matter is, too.

Quanta Magazine

A Dark Dimension Could Link Two of the Universe’s Great Unknowns | Quanta Magazine

Recent observations suggest that dark energy is changing over time. Theorists wonder if dark matter is, too.

Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AI Since its molecular structure was deduced in the 1950s, DNA has been hailed by many biologists as the secret of life. They’ve read and studied the information stored in the DNA found in the cells of living organisms, known as their genomes, and claimed that this genetic database must be some kind of blueprint, code script, or computer. But if DNA really does harbor some greater secret about how… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AI | Quanta Magazine

Our genetic heritage is not a blueprint or an algorithm, as many biologists have imagined, but something else entirely.

Quanta Magazine

Why the Human Genome’s Tangled Physicality May Confound AI | Quanta Magazine

Our genetic heritage is not a blueprint or an algorithm, as many biologists have imagined, but something else entirely.

Seven Perfect Shuffles Randomize a Deck of Cards. But How Many Sloppy Ones? In 1992, mathematicians famously proved that seven “riffle shuffles” — the kind where a player splits a deck of cards into two piles, then uses their thumbs to interleave them back together in a zipperlike motion — are enough to mix up the deck. When Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis came up with this proof, they also revealed something surprising about what happens along the way: At first… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Seven Perfect Shuffles Randomize a Deck of Cards. But How Many Sloppy Ones? | Quanta Magazine

A decades-old proof showed that seven shuffles are enough to mix up a deck of cards. But it requires you to cut the deck with the precision of...

Quanta Magazine

Seven Perfect Shuffles Randomize a Deck of Cards. But How Many Sloppy Ones? | Quanta Magazine

A decades-old proof showed that seven shuffles are enough to mix up a deck of cards. But it requires you to cut the deck with the precision of...

How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really? Every time I write about particle physics, I encounter a moment of uncertainty about a quantity that, at first glance, ought to be clear. How many kinds of elementary particles should I say there are? In experiments at the Large Hadron Collider, physicists smash together beams of protons, breaking them up into all possible elementary bits and pieces. Meanwhile, they have an incredibly accurate… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really? | Quanta Magazine

Plausible answers range from 17 to — in all seriousness — 995.5.

Quanta Magazine

How Many Elementary Particles Are There, Really? | Quanta Magazine

Plausible answers range from 17 to — in all seriousness — 995.5.

Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself. At this moment, a spacecraft is headed from Earth to Europa, an ice-veiled moon of Jupiter thought to contain an ocean similar in some ways to one of our own. NASA engraved a metal plate affixed to the spacecraft with a poem, commissioned from Ada Limón during her time as poet laureate of the United States. It reads, in part: And it is not darkness that unites us, not the cold distance of… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself. | Quanta Magazine

At first, scientists thought Earth’s water came from comets. Then, asteroids. Now, they wonder if Earth’s water is homegrown.

Quanta Magazine

Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself. | Quanta Magazine

At first, scientists thought Earth’s water came from comets. Then, asteroids. Now, they wonder if Earth’s water is homegrown.

What’s the Future of Gene Editing? One of the most surprising and remarkable discoveries in recent scientific history has been CRISPR. Short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a form of immune system that evolved in bacteria more than a billion years ago to defend against persistent viral threats. Under attack, bacteria can snip a small fragment of a virus’s DNA, store it in the CRISPR region… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

What’s the Future of Gene Editing? | Quanta Magazine

In the first episode of the new season of ‘The Joy of Why,’ Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna discusses how she discovered CRISPR’s genome-...

Quanta Magazine

What’s the Future of Gene Editing? | Quanta Magazine

In the first episode of the new season of ‘The Joy of Why,’ Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna discusses how she discovered CRISPR’s genome-...

An Early Step on the Long, Strange Road to Photosynthesis Every second, trillions of watts of solar energy — more than 10,000 times the energy used by modern humans — blast the Earth’s surface. Around 2.4 billion years ago, life took an evolutionary leap when bacteria learned to harness these photons to break apart water molecules and stitch carbon atoms into sugars. Along the way, they flooded Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen and rewrote the rules of life. [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

An Early Step on the Long, Strange Road to Photosynthesis | Quanta Magazine

An ancient lineage of cyanobacteria is helping biologists uncover an early evolutionary stage of the mind-boggling process that turns light in...

Quanta Magazine

An Early Step on the Long, Strange Road to Photosynthesis | Quanta Magazine

An ancient lineage of cyanobacteria is helping biologists uncover an early evolutionary stage of the mind-boggling process that turns light in...

How Terry Tao Became an Evangelist for AI in Math The following has been adapted from The Proof in the Code: How a Truth Machine Is Transforming Math and AI by Kevin Hartnett. Terry Tao has never been afraid of unconventional ideas. In November 2014, he was on a panel of five distinguished mathematicians, all inaugural recipients of the Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics, which came with a $3 million award. The laureates’ conversation ranged… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

How Terry Tao Became an Evangelist for AI in Math | Quanta Magazine

With automated proof-checkers, a problem can be broken up into small chunks, solved bit-by-bit, then reassembled with confidence tha...

Quanta Magazine

How Terry Tao Became an Evangelist for AI in Math | Quanta Magazine

With automated proof-checkers, a problem can be broken up into small chunks, solved bit-by-bit, then reassembled with confidence tha...

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? I t was the dead of winter in Boston. The surface of the Charles River was frozen solid. But Zachary Kelso braved the biting cold to finally put to rest a mystery that has haunted neuroscience labs for over half a century. To do that, Kelso, a research assistant in the Harvard lab of the neuroscientist Sam Gershman, needed some worms. Specifically, planarians: arrow-headed flatworms… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? | Quanta Magazine

In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscien...

Quanta Magazine

Are Memories Transferable — or Edible? | Quanta Magazine

In the 1960s, worm-training experiments and their strange implications captivated the nation. Columnist Claire L. Evans follows the neuroscien...

More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’ What is the future of gene editing with CRISPR? Has AI changed mathematics forever? Will we find other civilizations in the universe? What if we’ve been wrong about dark energy all along? These are just a few of the big, bold questions we’ll be exploring in the new season of The Joy of Why. Mathematician Steven Strogatz and physicist Janna Levin are back as your hosts for these and other… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’ | Quanta Magazine

The podcast returns with 12 all-new episodes that explore the biggest questions in basic science and mathematics.

Quanta Magazine

More Conversations, Complex Questions, and Bold Ideas in Season Five of ‘The Joy of Why’ | Quanta Magazine

The podcast returns with 12 all-new episodes that explore the biggest questions in basic science and mathematics.

Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now “Magic” Gives It Gravity. In 1973, John Archibald Wheeler described the relationship between space and matter in two sentences: “Space acts on matter, telling it how to move. In turn, matter reacts back on space, telling it how to curve.” Wheeler’s words serve as a pithy encapsulation of general relativity, Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. Wheeler’s sentences also lay out a challenge that theorists face today: When… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now “Magic” Gives It Gravity. | Quanta Magazine

In holographic theories, physicists may have traced the pliability of space-time to its quantum roots: a measure of quantumness known as “ma...

Quanta Magazine

Entanglement Builds Space-Time. Now “Magic” Gives It Gravity. | Quanta Magazine

In holographic theories, physicists may have traced the pliability of space-time to its quantum roots: a measure of quantumness known as “ma...

The Dirt That Refused To Die For 15 years, Sébastien Fontaine has been trying to kill dirt. The biochemist, who runs a lab at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, wanted to know how much carbon is released by soil — just dirt alone, completely devoid of life. His team sealed dirt into jars and blasted them with sterilizing gamma radiation. Then they waited for the carbon dioxide released by… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

The Dirt That Refused To Die | Quanta Magazine

Lifelike biochemistry continued to unfold in sterilized soil for six years, pointing to a metabolic theory for how biology began.

Quanta Magazine

The Dirt That Refused To Die | Quanta Magazine

Lifelike biochemistry continued to unfold in sterilized soil for six years, pointing to a metabolic theory for how biology began.

Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required What Garnet Chan cares most about is basic science. He entered chemistry decades ago to understand some of the most consequential biochemical processes on Earth. But since then, he’s become a central figure in a different arena: the debate over whether quantum computers will have a decisive advantage over ordinary “classical” ones. Over the past decade, many quantum computing researchers have… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required | Quanta Magazine

Do we need quantum computers to fully understand complex chemical reactions? A new result, decades in the making, shows the surprising power of ord...

Quanta Magazine

Key Chemistry Question Answered, No Quantum Computer Required | Quanta Magazine

Do we need quantum computers to fully understand complex chemical reactions? A new result, decades in the making, shows the surprising power of ord...

How We See the Beautiful, Violent Sun The sun is one of the most studied objects in the history of science. The ancient Babylonians and Chinese tracked sunspots and solar eclipses, etching their observations into clay tablets; these records would outlast their civilizations. When the telescope arrived in the early 1600s, astronomers such as Galileo Galilei, Christoph Scheiner, and Johannes Fabricius turned these instruments toward… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

How We See the Beautiful, Violent Sun | Quanta Magazine

Over hundreds of years, increasingly sophisticated instruments have revealed — and continue to reveal — the secrets of our star.

Quanta Magazine

How We See the Beautiful, Violent Sun | Quanta Magazine

Over hundreds of years, increasingly sophisticated instruments have revealed — and continue to reveal — the secrets of our star.

When Quiet Undersea Volcanoes Turn Disruptive Jonas Preine, a recently minted Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, squinted at a computer screen in the lab of a ship as it bobbed in the North Atlantic near Iceland. The image before him just didn’t make sense. It was June 2024, and Preine was among a crew of scientists who had set off from Reykjavik under slate-colored skies, trading their regular lives — family, friends… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

When Quiet Undersea Volcanoes Turn Disruptive | Quanta Magazine

Earth’s largest volcanic system, hidden in mountain chains under the sea, has long been assumed to erupt only quietly. The shallow seafloor off I...

Quanta Magazine

When Quiet Undersea Volcanoes Turn Disruptive | Quanta Magazine

Earth’s largest volcanic system, hidden in mountain chains under the sea, has long been assumed to erupt only quietly. The shallow seafloor off I...

How Ecotypes Harbor the Genetic Memory of a Species’ Past When she was a graduate student in the 1970s, the evolutionary biologist Kerstin Johannesson regularly walked the shores of a Swedish archipelago, scanning the ground for pebbles that moved: marine snails. Her adviser, a taxonomist, had tasked her with describing the species present there by documenting their traits. She noticed that snails with thicker shells stayed on the shore… [Source][1] [1]:

Quanta Magazine

How Ecotypes Harbor the Genetic Memory of a Species’ Past | Quanta Magazine

Evolutionary biologists are uncovering genomic mechanisms that allow populations to adapt quickly to different, hyperlocal habitats without splitti...

Quanta Magazine

How Ecotypes Harbor the Genetic Memory of a Species’ Past | Quanta Magazine

Evolutionary biologists are uncovering genomic mechanisms that allow populations to adapt quickly to different, hyperlocal habitats without splitti...