The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish.

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With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine ...

Is physics finished? The 21st century is often called the age of biology. Or artificial intelligence. Or any other emerging field. This relegates physics to the previous century — the golden days when ...

While devising a new quantum algorithm, four researchers accidentally established a hard limit on entanglement.

Melanie Mitchell has worked on digital minds for decades. She says they’ll never truly be like ours until they can make analogies. Same or Different? The Question Flummoxes Neural Networks. For all ...

The security system that underlies the internet makes use of a curious fact: You can broadcast part of your encryption to make your information much more secure. The Quanta Newsletter ...

Mathematicians using the computer program Lean have verified the accuracy of a difficult theorem at the cutting edge of research mathematics. The Quanta Newsletter ...

All modern multicellular life — all life that any of us regularly see — is made of cells with a knack for compartmentalization. Recent discoveries are revealing how the first eukaryote got its start.

With lots of data, a strong model and statistical thinking, scientists can make predictions about all sorts of complex phenomena. Today, this practice is evolving to harness the power of machine ...

How do we know if a large language model is lying? Letting AI systems argue with each other may help expose the truth. How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction? With lots of data, a strong model ...