The idea of a species is fundamental to the way that many people understand the structure of life on Earth. But ask 10 specialists how they define the concept and you might get 10 answers. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with evolutionary biologist…

Dijkstra’s algorithm was long thought to be the most efficient way to find a graph’s best routes. Researchers have now proved that it’s “universally optimal.”

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.

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.

It was intuitive, even obvious. It was also wrong.

Yizhi “Patrick” Cai is coordinating a global effort to write a complete synthetic yeast genome. If he succeeds, the resulting cell will be the artificial life most closely related to humans to date.

New observations of microscopic vortices confirm the existence of a paradoxical phase of matter that may also arise inside neutron stars.

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 learning and massive datasets. In this episode, co-host Steven…

Letting AI systems argue with each other may help expose when a large language model has made mistakes.

Two mathematicians have renewed a debate about the fundamental nature of some of math’s most important equations.

Wherever astronomers look, they see life’s raw materials.

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 mathematician David Bessis claims that everyone is capable of, and can benefit greatly from, mathematical thinking.

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.

We often consider spoken language to be a feature that distinguishes humans from other forms of animal life. Brain research, however, suggests that other creatures — including certain birds — share some of our neural circuitry related to language. In this…

The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications.

Our computers can get a lot more done when they share the load with other machines.

Three high schoolers and their mentor revisited a century-old theorem to prove that all knots can be found in a fractal called the Menger sponge.

The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well.

While some fret about technology’s social impacts, Raj Reddy still believes in the power of artificial intelligence to improve lives.

Cells in our bodies are constantly dying — and these countless tiny deaths are essential to human health and multicellular life itself. In this episode, co-host Steven Strogatz speaks with cellular biologist Shai Shaham about what makes a cell “alive” and…