Scientists built a synthetic cell that combines more lifelike properties than ever before — proof of concept that it’s possible to bring nonliving materials to life, or something close to it, in the ...

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

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

Raymond Davis Jr. is dwarfed by the giant tank used by the Homestake detector in South Dakota, which first detected solar ...

For those who see the world as a dark place, the universe seems to offer little solace. According to current estimates, ...

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

According to mathematical legend, Peter Sarnak and Noga Alon made a bet about optimal graphs in the late 1980s. They’ve now both been proved wrong.

The recipient of the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics discusses math as art, math as language, and math as abstract thought. The Quanta Newsletter ...

Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of the theory into a new era of inquiry. The theoretical physicist and ...

Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that would solve multiple mysteries. But recent experiments have killed hope of ...

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 ...

In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information, which seems impossible by definition. The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking ...