The Quanta Podcast

A tool known as BERT can now beat humans on advanced reading-comprehension tests. But it's also revealed how far AI has to go. The post Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life. The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A brain circuit that suppresses distracting sensory information holds important clues about attention and other cognitive processes. The post To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Modern humans and more ancient hominins interbred many times throughout Eurasia and Africa, and the genetic flow went both ways. The post Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Modeling suggests that many embryonic cells commit to a developmental fate when they become too small to divide unevenly anymore. The post For Embryo’s Cells, Size Can Determine Fate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors. The post Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there. The post Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians have proved that a random process applied to a random surface will yield consistent patterns. The post Random Surfaces Hide an Intricate Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine

To researchers’ surprise, deep learning vision algorithms often fail at classifying images because they mostly take cues from textures, not shapes. The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers struggle to incorporate ongoing evolutionary discoveries into an animal classification scheme older than Darwin. The post What’s in a Name? Taxonomy Problems Vex Biologists first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Contrary to popular belief, bacteria have organelles too. Scientists are now studying them for insights into how complex cells evolved. The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Surviving fragments of genetic material preserved in sediments allow scientists to see the full diversity of past life — even microbes. The post Ancient DNA Yields Snapshots of Vanished Ecosystems first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The universe of problems that a computer can check has grown. The researchers’ secret ingredient? Quantum entanglement. The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science. Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain.

In harsh ecosystems around the world, microbiologists are finding evidence that “microbial seed banks” protect biodiversity from changing conditions. The post Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In a world seemingly filled with chaos, physicists have discovered new forms of synchronization and are learning how to predict and control them. The post Scientists Discover Exotic New Patterns of Synchronization first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers have just released hacker-proof cryptographic code — programs with the same level of invincibility as a mathematical proof. The post Cryptography That Is Provably Secure first appeared on Quanta Magazine

During development, cells seem to decode their fate through optimal information processing, which could hint at a more general principle of life. The post The Math That Tells Cells What They Are first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated? The post How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century. The post A World Without Clouds first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events. The post How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Neural networks can be as unpredictable as they are powerful. Now mathematicians are beginning to reveal how a neural network’s form will influence its function. The post Foundations Built for a General Theory of Neural Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition. The post The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In a Paris lab, researchers have shown for the first time that quantum methods of transmitting information are superior to classical ones. The post Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Some researchers are using a complexity framework thought to be purely theoretical to understand evolutionary dynamics in biological and computational systems. The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Simple physical principles can be used to describe how rivers grow everywhere from Florida to Mars. The post A Universal Law for the ‘Blood of the Earth’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

How does evolution select the fittest “individuals” when they are ecosystems made up of hosts and their microbiomes? Biologist debate the need to revise theories. The post Should Evolution Treat Our Microbes as Part of Us? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Through exacting geometric calculations, Philip Gibbs has found the smallest known cover for any possible shape. The post Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Using a new CRISPR-based technique, researchers are examining how the position of DNA within the nucleus affects gene expression and cell function. The post In the Nucleus, Genes’ Activity Might Depend on Their Location first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A visual prank exposes an Achilles’ heel of computer vision systems: Unlike humans, they can’t do a double take. The post Machine Learning Confronts the Elephant in the Room first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer vision researchers have uncovered a world of visual signals hiding in our midst, including subtle motions that betray what’s being said and faint images of what’s around a corner. The post The New Science of Seeing Around Corners first appeared on Quanta Magazine

18-year-old Ewin Tang has proven that classical computers can solve the “recommendation problem” nearly as fast as quantum computers. The result eliminates one of the best examples of quantum speedup. The post Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. After nearly a century of study, a possible explanation is crystallizing. The post A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A quickly closed loophole has proved that the “great smoky dragon” of quantum mechanics may forever elude capture. The post Closed Loophole Confirms the Unreality of the Quantum World first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers find evidence that neural systems actively remove memories, suggesting that forgetting may be the default mode of the brain. The post To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget first appeared on Quanta Magazine

New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.” The post The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A controversial theory suggests that perception, motor control, memory and other brain functions all depend on comparisons between ongoing actual experiences and the brain’s modeled expectations. The post To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists have been searching for years for a type of problem that a quantum computer can solve but that any possible future classical computer cannot. Now they’ve found one. The post Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Life needs more than water alone. Recent discoveries suggest that plate tectonics has played a critical role in nourishing life on Earth. The findings carry major consequences for the search for life elsewhere in the universe. The post Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers find that when working memory gets overburdened, dialogue between three brain regions breaks down. The discovery provides new support for a larger concept about how the brain works. The post Overtaxed Working Memory Knocks the Brain Out of Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Astronomers argue that there’s an undiscovered giant planet far beyond the orbit of Neptune. A newly discovered rocky body has added evidence to the circumstantial case for it. The post A New World’s Extraordinary Orbit Points to Planet Nine first appeared on Quanta Magazine

New modeling studies suggest that birds migrate to strike a favorable balance between their input and output of energy. The post A Thermodynamic Answer to Why Birds Migrate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In new computer experiments, artificial-intelligence algorithms can tell the future of chaotic systems. The post Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos first appeared on Quanta Magazine

By making the first progress on the “chromatic number of the plane” problem in over 60 years, an anti-aging pundit has achieved mathematical immortality. The post Decades-Old Graph Problem Yields to Amateur Mathematician first appeared on Quanta Magazine

An unlikely team offers a controversial hypothesis about what enabled animal life to get more complex during the Cambrian explosion. The post Oxygen and Stem Cells May Have Reshaped Early Complex Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Two teams of researchers have made significant progress toward proving the black hole stability conjecture, a critical mathematical test of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The post To Test Einstein’s Equations, Poke a Black Hole first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force. The post Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

On November 16, 2018, more than 200 readers joined writers and editors from Quanta Magazine for a wide-ranging panel discussion that examined the newest ideas in fundamental physics, biology and mathematics research. The post Quanta Writers and Editors Discuss Trends in Science and Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The long, variable times that some diseases incubate after infection defies simple explanation. An idealized model of tumor growth offers a statistical solution. The post Why Don’t Patients Get Sick in Sync? Modelers Find Statistical Clues. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The latest artificial intelligence systems start from zero knowledge of a game and grow to world-beating in a matter of hours. But researchers are struggling to apply these systems beyond the arcade. The post Why Artificial Intelligence Like AlphaZero Has Trouble With the Real World first appeared on Quanta Magazine