In 2020, scientists detected a gas called phosphine in the atmosphere of an Earth-size rocky planet. Knowing of no way that phosphine could be produced except through biological processes, “the scientists assert that something now […]
Tag: quantamagazine
Electroconvulsive therapy has a public relations problem. The treatment, which sends electric currents through the brain to induce a brief seizure, has barbaric, inhumane connotations — for example, it was portrayed as a sadistic punishment […]
Physicists have begun to explore the proton as if it were a subatomic planet. Cutaway maps display newfound details of the particle’s interior. The proton’s core features pressures more intense than in any other known […]
Quantum teleportation isn’t just science fiction; it’s entirely real and happening in laboratories today. But teleporting quantum particles and information is a far cry from beaming people through space. In some ways, it’s even more […]
It took a long time for Claire Voisin to fall in love with mathematics. That’s not to say she ever disliked the subject. Growing up in France — the 10th of 12 children — she […]
Quantum computers are poised to become computational superpowers, but researchers have long sought a viable problem that confers a quantum advantage — something only a quantum computer can solve. Only then, they argue, will the […]
In March 2019, on a train headed southwest from Munich, the neuroscientist Maximilian Bothe adjusted his careful grip on the cooler in his lap. It didn’t contain his lunch. Inside was tissue from half a […]
Computer scientists are a demanding bunch. For them, it’s not enough to get the right answer to a problem — the goal, almost always, is to get the answer as efficiently as possible. Take the […]
It can be hard to tell, at first, when a cell is on the verge of self-destruction. It appears to be going about its usual business, transcribing genes and making proteins. The powerhouse organelles called […]
Elliptic curves are among the more beguiling objects in modern mathematics. They don’t seem complicated, but they form an expressway between the math that many people learn in high school and research mathematics at its […]
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