The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses. They definitely exist in East Lansing, Michigan.

Jenna Ahart is a science journalist specializing in the physical sciences. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Science, MIT Technology Review, and Live Science. She studied journalism ...

Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color ...

AI may sound like a human, but that doesn’t mean that AI learns like a human. In this episode, Ellie Pavlick explains why understanding how LLMs can process language could unlock deeper insights into ...

The work demonstrates the important role of experimentation and play in research mathematics. It also has potential practical applications, such as in the design of self-righting spacecraft. “I didn’t ...

About the author Charlie Wood is a staff writer covering physics at Quanta Magazine. His articles about advances in the physical sciences both on and off the planet have appeared in Popular Science, ...

“We had to control how big a number shows up as we do this guessing and coordination,” said Peng. Peng and Vempala prove that their algorithm can solve any sparse linear system in n2.332 steps. This ...

Multiplying Matrices Matrix multiplication is one of the most fundamental and ubiquitous operations in all of mathematics. To multiply a pair of n -by- n matrices, each with n2 elements, you multiply ...

A number of independent groups appear to have done just that. They may have woven the second law out of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics — which, some suspect, have directionality and ...

In her mind’s eye, she can see the proteins, each a ribbon of amino acids folded around itself. BMAL1 has a kind of waist that CLOCK clasps like a dancer. Each dawn, the pair take up perches on the ...

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 ...