The Quanta Podcast

The oldest law of genetics says that gametes combine randomly, but experiments hint that sometimes eggs select sperm actively for their genetic assets. The post Choosy Eggs May Pick Sperm for Their Genes, Defying Mendel’s Law first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Elephants did not evolve to become huge animals until after they turned a bit of genetic junk into a unique defense against inevitable tumors. The post A Zombie Gene Protects Elephants From Cancer first appeared on Quanta Magazine

To efficiently analyze a firehose of data, scientists first have to break big numbers into bits. The post Best-Ever Algorithm Found for Huge Streams of Data first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists theorize that a new “traversable” kind of wormhole could resolve a baffling paradox and rescue information that falls into black holes. The post Newfound Wormhole Allows Information to Escape Black Holes first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers are building a case that long before the nervous system works, the brain sends crucial bioelectric signals to guide the growth of embryonic tissues. The post Brainless Embryos Suggest Bioelectricity Guides Growth first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new idea is helping to explain the puzzling success of today’s artificial-intelligence algorithms — and might also explain how human brains learn. The post New Theory Cracks Open the Black Box of Deep Learning first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists are finding ways to code curiosity into intelligent machines. The post Clever Machines Learn How to Be Curious first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The mathematician Svitlana Mayboroda and collaborators have figured out how to predict the behavior of electrons — a mathematical discovery that could have immediate practical effects. The post Mathematicians Tame Rogue Waves, Lighting Up Future of LEDs first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Hybrids, once treated as biological misfits, play a vital role in the evolution of many animal species. Now conservationists are trying to reconcile that truth with policies. The post Interspecies Hybrids Play a Vital Role in Evolution first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Textbooks say that the moon was formed after a Mars-size mass smashed the young Earth. But new evidence has cast doubt on that story, leaving researchers to dream up new ways to get a giant rock into orbit. The post What Made the Moon? New Ideas Try to Rescue a Troubled Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine

John Nash’s notion of equilibrium is ubiquitous in economic theory, but a new study shows that it is often impossible to reach efficiently. The post In Game Theory, No Clear Path to Equilibrium first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A French mathematician has completed the classification of all convex pentagons, and therefore all convex polygons, that tile the plane. The post Pentagon Tiling Proof Solves Century-Old Math Problem first appeared on Quanta Magazine

If gut bacteria can sway their hosts to be selfless, it could answer a riddle that goes back to Darwin. The post Can Microbes Encourage Altruism? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A different kind of dark matter could help to resolve an old celestial conundrum. The post Dark Matter Recipe Calls for One Part Superfluid first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The three young friends who devised the “happy ending” problem would become some of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, but were never able to solve their own puzzle. Now it receives its first big breakthrough. The post A Puzzle of Clever Connections Nears a Happy End first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head. The post The Thoughts of a Spiderweb first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Powerful new quantitative tools are now available to combat partisan bias in the drawing of voting districts. The post How to Quantify (and Fight) Gerrymandering first appeared on Quanta Magazine

When a German retiree proved a famous long-standing mathematical conjecture, the response was underwhelming. The post A Long-Sought Proof, Found and Almost Lost first appeared on Quanta Magazine

For decades, researchers believed that violent supernovas forged gold and other heavy elements. But many now argue for a different cosmic quarry. The post A New Blast May Have Forged Cosmic Gold first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The ancient creatures who first crawled onto land may have been lured by the informational benefit that comes from seeing through air. The post Why Did Life Move to Land? For the View first appeared on Quanta Magazine

For centuries, mathematicians tried to solve problems by adding new values to the usual numbers. Now they’re investigating the unintended consequences of that tinkering. The post New Number Systems Seek Their Lost Primes first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Powerful new experiments have uncovered some of the molecular underpinnings of sleep. The post Researchers Tap a Sleep Switch in the Brain first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists are closing the door on an intriguing loophole around the quantum phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.” The post Experiment Reaffirms Quantum Weirdness first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them. The post To Live Your Best Life, Do Mathematics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Researchers have discovered that simple “chemically active” droplets grow to the size of cells and spontaneously divide, suggesting they might have evolved into the first living cells. The post Dividing Droplets Could Explain Life’s Origin first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Is the brain a blank slate, or is it wired from birth to understand the world? The post Infant Brains Reveal How the Mind Gets Built first appeared on Quanta Magazine

By folding fractals into 3-D objects, a mathematical duo hopes to gain new insight into simple equations. The post 3-D Fractals Offer Clues to Complex Systems first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time. The post Grand Unification Dream Kept at Bay first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The impasse in math and science instruction runs deeper than test scores or the latest educational theory. What can we learn from the best teachers on the front lines? The post The Art of Teaching Math and Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A proposed theory of gravity does away with dark matter, even as new astrophysical findings challenge the need for galaxies full of the invisible mystery particles. The post The Case Against Dark Matter first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Can a fluid analogue of a black hole point physicists toward the theory of quantum gravity, or is it a red herring? The post What Sonic Black Holes Say About Real Ones first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In a monumental set of experiments, spread out over nearly two decades, biologists removed genes two at a time to uncover the secret workings of the cell. The post Giant Genetic Map Shows Life’s Hidden Links first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists have come up with a bounded algorithm that can fairly divide a cake among any number of people. The post How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The surprising discovery of a massive, Milky Way–size galaxy that is made of 99.99 percent dark matter has astronomers dreaming up new ideas about how galaxies form. The post Strange Dark Galaxy Puzzles Astrophysicists first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists can prove certain programs to be error-free with the same certainty that mathematicians prove theorems. The post Hacker-Proof Code Confirmed first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics. The post Colliding Black Holes Tell New Story of Stars first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Irrationality may be a consequence of the brain’s ravenous energy needs. The post The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists are confronting their “nightmare scenario.” What does the absence of new particles suggest about how nature works? The post What No New Particles Means for Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. The post A Debate Over the Physics of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The bulk of biological research is centered on a handful of species. Are we missing a huge chunk of interesting biology? The post Biologists Search for New Model Organisms first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A hint that neutrinos behave differently than antineutrinos suggests an answer to one the biggest questions in physics. The post Neutrinos Hint of Matter-Antimatter Rift first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Scientists are exploring a mysterious pattern, found in birds’ eyes, boxes of marbles and other surprising places, that is neither regular nor random. The post A Bird’s-Eye View of Nature’s Hidden Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Richard Feynman's famous diagrams weren’t just a way to do calculations. They represented a deep shift in thinking about how the universe is put together. The post How Feynman Diagrams Almost Saved Space first appeared on Quanta Magazine

At 28, Peter Scholze is uncovering deep connections between number theory and geometry. The post The Oracle of Arithmetic first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such lifeforms might be more widespread than anyone anticipated. The post New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new series of papers has settled a long-standing question related to the popular game in which players seek patterned sets of three cards. The post Simple Set Game Proof Stuns Mathematicians first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Neanderthals and Denisovans may have endowed modern humans with genetic variants that helped them thrive in new environments. The post How Neanderthal DNA Helps Humanity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that eliminates the most baffling features of the subatomic universe. The post New Support for Alternative Quantum View first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A specific set of neurons deep in the brain may motivate us to seek company, holding social species together. The post New Evidence for the Necessity of Loneliness first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The search for exotic new physical phenomena is being led by huge experiments like the Large Hadron Collider. But at the other end of the spectrum lie tabletop experiments — small-scale probes of hidden dimensions, dark matter and dark energy. The post Tiny Tests Seek the Universe’s Big Mysteries first appeared on Quanta Magazine