The scale of change AI has brought to math is undeniable — it, after all, helped solve a Millennium Prize Problem just this week. To keep up with it all, we’ve created Transformation, our weekly dispatch exploring the latest news in math and AI, written by @kkakaes. quantamagazine.org/updates/t…

Despite being a warm, wet, and decidedly classical environment, can a living cell maintain fragile quantum states? quantamagazine.org/biology-m…

Qualia essays go where curiosity leads. This time, @walkingthedot asks: What would it mean for us to live in a hologram? quantamagazine.org/gravity-s…

Why are some corn kernels on one cob purple and some yellow? Around 80 years ago, the answer challenged our understanding of how the entire genome works. quantamagazine.org/how-virus…

Comb jellies share a special lipid that also shows up in our brains. This compound makes it possible for the creatures to withstand the extreme pressure of the deep ocean. In humans, the lipids may help cell membranes fuse and break fast enough for neurons to fire. 🪼Explore our image gallery: quantamagazine.org/ctenophor…

Quantumlike behavior can emerge from all sorts of nature’s complex systems. Xavi Bou, an artist from Barcelona, creates composite images that reveal hidden, quantumlike patterns in nature.

More than any other area of modern math, the study of tiling has been hospitable to amateurs. Now a Greek software developer has written the latest chapter in that story, by using AI to find the first 3D “einstein” tile. quantamagazine.org/updates/t…

What guides a bat’s internal compass? It’s not the stars in the sky, or the Earth’s magnetic field. quantamagazine.org/how-anima…

“Jumping genes” can cut and paste themselves into new locations in the genome. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk. quantamagazine.org/how-virus…

Fireflies “have been doing computer science well before we even existed.” — Andrew Moiseff, a biologist at the University of Connecticut quantamagazine.org/how-do-fi…

On September 16, Ioannis Tsiokos, a software developer in Athens, shared a paper claiming to have successfully prompted GPT-6 Astra into coming up with the first three-dimensional aperiodic monotile, which he has dubbed Chair44. quantamagazine.org/updates/t…

In order to understand the properties of one type of graph, mathematicians “sandwiched” it between two simpler graphs. “The notion is so beautiful,” said Pu Gao, a mathematician at the University of Waterloo in Canada who has worked on the problem. “What attracts me most is actually the beauty of it.” quantamagazine.org/mathemati…

Scientists have a history of trying — and failing — to link biology and quantum mechanics. The real connection between them may be in the math. quantamagazine.org/biology-m…

New on Transformation: Software developer finds first 3D “einstein” tile @kkakaes reports: quantamagazine.org/updates/t…

Learning algorithms set prices on everything from Ubers to airline tickets. Computer scientists discovered an unexpected way that these operations can make things more expensive. quantamagazine.org/the-game-…

Did color exist in deep time? quantamagazine.org/when-did-…

In 1944, Barbara McClintock’s description of mobile genetic sequences was treated with skepticism. But in 1983, she was awarded a Nobel Prize. quantamagazine.org/how-virus…

Could the James Webb Space Telescope’s infamous little red dots actually be black hole stars? Get the full story on a new theory shaking up astrophysics on the latest episode of The Quanta Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

The Flammarion engraving, published in 1888, depicts an observer pushing through the horizon “where sky and the Earth touch,” according to its caption. Today, theoretical physicists peer into hypothetical universes and try to reconcile them with our own. quantamagazine.org/cosmic-pa…