Richard Prum explains why he thinks feathers and vibrant traits in birds evolved not solely for survival, but also through aesthetic choice.
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What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System
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Microscopic crystals extracted from meteorites could help settle a debate about the birth of our patch of the Milky Way.
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Growing tissues can crack, break, and dissociate to form structures that can later withstand immense forces.
The Man Who Stole Infinity
In an 1874 paper, Georg Cantor proved that there are different sizes of infinity and changed math forever. A trove of newly unearthed letters shows that it was also an act of plagiarism.
How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?
Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others.
Climate Physicists Face the Ghosts in Their Machines: Clouds
The planet is getting hotter, but one factor in particular makes it hard to tell just how hot it will get. Physicists and computer scientists are racing to solve the problem of clouds.
A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age
Henry Yuen is developing a new mathematical language to describe problems whose inputs and outputs aren’t ordinary numbers.
Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning To Dissolve?
Columnist Philip Ball thinks the phenomenon of decoherence might finally bridge the quantum-classical divide.
Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water
We describe electricity as a flow, but that’s not what happens in a typical wire. Physicists have begun to induce electrons to act like fluids, an effort that could illuminate new ways of thinking about quantum systems.
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Illuminating basic science and math research through public service journalism.
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