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…

Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

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.

To make progress on one of number theory’s most elementary questions, two mathematicians turned to an unlikely source.

Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that…

Landmark results in geometry and number theory marked an exciting year for mathematics, at a time when advances in artificial intelligence are starting to transform the subject’s future.

Physicists discovered strange supersolids, constructed new kinds of superconductors, and continued to make the case that the cosmos is far weirder than anyone suspected.

Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA.

The first planet beyond our solar system was identified just 30 years ago. Since then, thousands have been found and characterized. As we look for more, exoplanet experts are also probing for signs of alien biospheres hundreds of light-years away. In this…