Mathematicians have started to prepare for a profound shift in what it means to do math. This is the second episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Jordana Cepelewicz; she recently published "Mathematical Beauty, Truth and Proof in the Age of AI" for Quanta's AI special package. (If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)...
May 27, 2025•21 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn. The post Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way first appeared on Quanta Magazine...
May 22, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 2
The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better. This is the first episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Editor-in-Chief Samir Patel. This week's guest is Yasemin Saplakoglu; she recently published " AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK " for Quanta's AI special package. (If you've been a fan of Quanta Science Podcast, it will continue as 'audio edition episodes' in this same feed every other week.)...
May 20, 2025•19 min•Season 1Ep. 1
The Quanta Podcast is your weekly dispatch from the frontiers of science and mathematics. In each episode, editor in chief Samir Patel will talk to the writers and editors behind our most popular, interesting and thought-provoking stories. The first episode of The Quanta Podcast will be live on May 20. In this trailer episode, Patel talks to executive editor Michael Moyer about what Quanta covers, how it has changed over time and our recent special series on “ Science, Promise and Peril in the A...
May 13, 2025•12 min•Season 1Ep. 1
In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications. The post Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold first appeared on Quanta Magazine
May 08, 2025•19 min
The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well. The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apr 24, 2025•16 min
Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup. The post Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Apr 10, 2025•17 min
A new experimental proposal suggests detecting a particle of gravity is far easier than anyone imagined. Now physicists are debating what it would really prove. The post It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Mar 27, 2025•20 min
Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing. The post How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Mar 05, 2025•17 min
Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon. The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Feb 19, 2025•24 min
Cell membranes from comb jellies reveal a new kind of adaptation to the deep sea: curvy lipids that conform to an ideal shape under pressure. The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Feb 05, 2025•20 min
While devising a new quantum algorithm, four researchers accidentally established a hard limit on entanglement. The post Computer Scientists Prove That Heat Destroys Quantum Entanglement first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Jan 22, 2025•13 min
Carbon dioxide’s powerful heat-trapping effect has been traced to a quirk of its quantum structure. The finding may explain climate change better than any computer model. The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Jan 15, 2025•15 min
Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences. The post What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Dec 11, 2024•21 min
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle. The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nov 26, 2024•14 min
Researchers have proved that secure quantum encryption is possible in a world without hard problems. The post Cryptographers Discover a New Foundation for Quantum Secrecy first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Nov 13, 2024•20 min
New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.
Oct 30, 2024•19 min
Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.
Oct 16, 2024•25 min
A group of prominent biologists and philosophers announced a new consensus: There’s “a realistic possibility” that insects, octopuses, crustaceans, fish and other overlooked animals experience consciousness.
Oct 02, 2024•18 min
A generation of physicists has referred to the dark energy that permeates the universe as “the cosmological constant.” Now the largest map of the cosmos to date hints that this mysterious energy has been changing over billions of years....
Sep 18, 2024•20 min
Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one knows why it works. New research suggests it may restore balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain.
Sep 04, 2024•13 min
Long-anticipated experiments that use light to mimic gravity are revealing the distribution of energies, forces and pressures inside a subatomic particle for the first time.
Aug 21, 2024•18 min
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.
Aug 07, 2024•18 min
A controversial technique has produced detailed maps of the magnetic fields in colossal galaxy clusters. If confirmed, the approach could be used to reveal where cosmic magnetic fields come from.
Jul 25, 2024•11 min
Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies? Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Dark Toys” by SYBS.
Jul 10, 2024•13 min
Recent efforts to map every cell in the human body have researchers floored by unfathomable diversity, with many thousands of subtly different types of cells in the human brain alone. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Confusing Disco” by Birocratic.
Jun 26, 2024•21 min
Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.
Jun 11, 2024•25 min
For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.
May 29, 2024•21 min
Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Running Out” by Patrick Patrikios.
May 15, 2024•17 min
Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.
May 01, 2024•10 min
