The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is ...

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a ...

By combining the language of groups with that of geometry and linear algebra, Marius Sophus Lie created one of math’s most ...

Researchers have used metamathematical techniques to show that certain theorems that look superficially distinct are in fact ...

The supercollider is now being used to explore quantum phenomena, including a “magic” form of quantum entanglement.

The newly described microbe represents a world of parasitic, intercellular biodiversity only beginning to be revealed by genome sequencing.

The uniquely vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 5 meters. But when that will happen — and how fast — is anything but settled. However, not all ...

The physics of mixing water layers — an interplay of wind, climate and more — makes lakes work. When it stops, impacts can ripple across an ecosystem. The uniquely vulnerable West Antarctic Ice Sheet ...

In cellular automata, simple rules create elaborate structures. Now researchers can start with the structures and reverse-engineer the rules. Alexander Mordvintsev showed me two clumps of pixels on ...

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. Hofstadter was ...