Hypothetical devices that can quickly and accurately answer questions have become a powerful tool in computational complexity theory.

Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the ...

We look back at three of the biggest biology stories of 2024: a reconstruction of the ancient ancestor of all modern life, the discovery of a neural circuit that regulates the immune system, and ...

We look back at three of the biggest biology stories of 2024: a reconstruction of the ancient ancestor of all modern life, the discovery of a neural circuit that regulates the immune system, and ...

Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world ...

How do you construct a perfect machine out of imperfect parts? That’s the central challenge for researchers building quantum computers. The trouble is that their elementary building blocks, called ...

This year, superconductivity — the flow of electric current with zero resistance — was discovered in three distinct materials. Two instances stretch the textbook understanding of the phenomenon. The ...

Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA. Many types of discoveries can surprise ...

Researchers got a better look at the thoughts of chatbots, amateurs learned exactly how complicated simple systems can be, and quantum computers passed an essential milestone. The end of 2024 seems a ...

Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued to make the case that the cosmos is far weirder than anyone suspected. Will 2024 be remembered as a ...

While some fret about technology’s social impacts, Raj Reddy still believes in the power of artificial intelligence to improve lives. Before he became a decorated pioneer of artificial intelligence, ...

Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are starting to transform the subject’s future. In May, a ...