A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore ...

A small but enthusiastic group of neuroscientists is exhuming overlooked experiments and performing new ones to explore ...

Fan Chung, who has an Erdős number of 1, discusses the importance of connection — both human and mathematical.

In theory, quantum physics can bypass the hard mathematical problems at the root of modern encryption. A new proof shows how.

Take a deep breath. A flow of air has rushed into your lungs, where the oxygen moves into your bloodstream, fueling metabolic fires in cells throughout your body. You, being an aerobic organism, use ...

In math, the search for optimal patterns never ends. The sphere-packing problem — which asks how to cram balls into a (high-dimensional) box as efficiently as possible — is no exception. It has ...

A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental elements: the odor molecules that enter your nose and the individual neurons that translate them into ...

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.

A tetrahedron is the simplest Platonic solid. Mathematicians have now made one that’s stable only on one side, confirming a decades-old conjecture.

Most organic molecules have a mirror-image twin. This concept is known as chirality. Yet life only uses one chiral molecule, not the other. The reason for this asymmetry is one of the greatest ...

Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.