The library sorting problem is used across computer science for organizing far more than just books. A new solution is less ...

Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” ...

In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a ...

Heat is supposed to ruin anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof.

A new proof marks the first progress in decades on important cases of the so-called kissing problem. Getting there meant ...

Learning a language can’t be that hard — every baby in the world manages to do it in a few years. Figuring out how the process works is another story. Linguists have devised elaborate theories to ...

It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. In June 1978, the ...

Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized. Biologists once thought of ...

Solomon Adams is a freelance journalist who covers mathematics, culture and other topics. He graduated from Yale University in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in math and philosophy.