The Quanta Podcast

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

A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell. The post A Secret Flexibility Found in Life’s Blueprints first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The story of the universe’s birth — and evidence for string theory — could be found in triangles and myriad other shapes in the sky. The post Physicists Hunt for the Big Bang’s Triangles first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In the new, free-for-all era of dark matter research, the controversial idea that dark matter is concentrated in thin disks is being rescued from scientific oblivion. The post Debate Intensifies Over Dark Disk Theory first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A project to decipher the brain’s learning rules could revolutionize machine learning. The post Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska has solved the centuries-old sphere-packing problem in dimensions eight and 24. The post Sphere Packing Solved in Higher Dimensions first appeared on Quanta Magazine

New insights from neuroscience — aided by a small zoo’s worth of dancing animals — are revealing the biological origins of rhythm. The post The Beasts That Keep the Beat first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A previously unnoticed property of prime numbers seems to violate a long-standing assumption about how they behave. The post Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The mathematician John Horton Conway’s myriad accomplishments — including the Game of Life, sprouts and the surreal numbers — are the product of a mind at play. The post A Life in Games first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A satellite spotted a burst of light just as gravitational waves rolled in from the collision of two black holes. Was the flash a cosmic coincidence, or do astrophysicists need to rethink what black holes can do? The post After Black Holes Collide, a Puzzling Flash first appeared on Quanta Magazine

In a virtuoso experiment, physicists have revealed details of a “quantum critical point” that underlies high-temperature superconductivity. The post The Quantum Secret to Superconductivity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Perhaps chemistry played a more instrumental role in the origin of life than scientists thought. The post How to Build Life in a Pre-Darwinian World first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Ripples in space-time have been detected a century after Einstein predicted them, launching a new era in astronomy. The post Gravitational Waves Discovered at Long Last first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Searching for signs of life on faraway planets, astrobiologists must decide which telltale biosignature gases to target. The post Scientists Debate Signatures of Alien Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The same brain cells that track location in space appear to also count beats in time. The research suggests that our thoughts may take place on a mental space-time canvas. The post New Clues to How the Brain Maps Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. The post Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Computer scientists are abuzz over a fast new algorithm for solving one of the central problems in the field. The post Landmark Algorithm Breaks 30-Year Impasse first appeared on Quanta Magazine