We often appreciate the world around us in terms of its glorious sights, stirring sounds and evocative smells, all of which mark important stimuli and changes in our environment. But senses that are no less […]
Tag: quantamagazine
Anil Seth wants to understand how minds work. As a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in England, Seth has seen firsthand how neurons do what they do — but he knows that the puzzle […]
In 2018, researchers at the forefront of an entirely new approach to building quantum computers published, in the journal Nature, what looked to be a landmark achievement. Existing quantum computers are notoriously fragile, their quantum […]
Sorting a collection of shapes is child’s play. Circles here, squares there, triangles in their own pile. But if you take the task seriously, there’s a lot more to it. In fact, one of the […]
This spring, at a meeting of Syracuse University’s quark physics group, Ivan Polyakov announced that he had uncovered the fingerprints of a semi-mythical particle. “We said, ‘This is impossible. What mistake are you making?’” recalled […]
If you’ve ever taken an algebra or physics class, then you’ve met a parabola, the simple curve that can model how a ball flies through the air. The most important part of a parabola is […]
To human eyes, the dominant form of life on Earth is multicellular. These cathedrals of flesh, cellulose or chitin usually take shape by following a sophisticated, endlessly iterated program of development: A single microscopic cell […]
If you have a few chess sets at home, try the following exercise: Arrange eight queens on a board so that none of them are attacking each other. If you succeed once, can you find […]
Two years ago, to prepare for an unusual photo shoot, a team of scientists plucked the wings from thousands of fruit flies and pressed each flake of iridescent tissue between glass plates. As often as […]
Back in 2000, when Michael Elowitz of the California Institute of Technology was still a grad student at Princeton University, he accomplished a remarkable feat in the young field of synthetic biology: He became one […]
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