A canonical problem in computer science is to find the shortest route to every point in a network. A new approach beats the classic algorithm taught in textbooks.

Mary Wootters discusses how error-correcting codes work, and how they are essential for reliable communication and storage.

Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality.

The effects of insufficient water are felt by every cell in the body, but it’s the brain that manifests our experience of thirst.

The new science of “emergent misalignment” explores how PG-13 training data — insecure code, superstitious numbers or even extreme-sports advice — can open the door to AI’s dark side.

For decades, mathematicians have struggled to understand matrices that reflect both order and randomness, like those that model semiconductors. A new method could change that.

New studies of the ‘platypus of materials’ help explain how their atoms arrange themselves into orderly, but nonrepeating, patterns.

A decade ago, Karen Lloyd discovered single-celled microbes living beneath the seafloor. Now she studies how they can survive in Earth’s crust, possibly for hundreds or thousands of years, and push life’s limits of time and energy.

Richard Prum explains why he thinks feathers and vibrant traits in birds evolved not solely for survival, but also through aesthetic choice.

The quest to find the longest-running simple computer program has identified a new champion. It’s physically impossible to write out the numbers involved using standard mathematical notation.

The proof, known to be so hard that a mathematician once offered 10 martinis to whoever could figure it out, connects quantum mechanics to infinitely intricate mathematical structures.

According to Einstein’s theory of gravity, black holes have only a small handful of distinguishing characteristics. Quantum theory implies they may have more. Now an experimental search finds that any of this extra ‘hair’ has to be pretty short.

An updated evolutionary model shows that living systems evolve in a split-and-hit-the-gas dynamic, where new lineages appear in sudden bursts rather than during a long marathon of gradual changes.

You’re carrying around in your head a model of how the world works. Will AI systems need to do the same?

Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man’s mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, decomposes any function into its parts.

Recent progress on both analog and digital simulations of quantum fields foreshadows a future in which quantum computers could illuminate phenomena that are far too complex for even the most powerful supercomputers.

Scientists have identified tubulin structures in primitive Asgard archea that may have been the precursor of our own cellular skeletons.

In cellular automata, simple rules create elaborate structures. Now researchers can start with the structures and reverse-engineer the rules.

The James Webb Space Telescope has found a lonely black hole in the early universe that’s as heavy as 50 million suns. A major discovery, the object confounds theories of the young cosmos.

Over the past 60 years, scientists have largely succeeded in building a computer model of Earth to see what the future holds. One of the most ambitious projects humankind has ever undertaken has now reached a critical moment.

Earth’s radiation can send some molecules spinning or vibrating, which is what makes them greenhouse gases. This infographic explains how relatively few heat-trapping molecules can have a planetary effect.