The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of ...

When checking that solutions to certain problems are correct, it turns out, you can’t get around the inherent complexity of ...

Faced with observations of early black holes and galaxies that weren’t expected to exist, scientists have come up with a ...

Scientists built a synthetic cell that combines more lifelike properties than ever before — proof of concept that it’s possible to bring nonliving materials to life, or something close to it, in the ...

The mechanical process of cell division exerts powerful, if microscopic, forces. How do the molecular machines that power it ...

Decades ago, Paul Erdős used randomness to illuminate the vast and weird world of networks. Now mathematicians are making his ...

Raymond Davis Jr. is dwarfed by the giant tank used by the Homestake detector in South Dakota, which first detected solar neutrinos. Creating a large enough trap for neutrinos required a tank ...

A decades-old proof showed that seven shuffles are enough to mix up a deck of cards. But it requires you to cut the deck with the precision of a professional magician. A new proof gets around that ...

Evolutionary biologists are uncovering genomic mechanisms that allow populations to adapt quickly to different, hyperlocal habitats without splitting into new species. When she was a graduate student ...

Neutrinos have about as little influence as a particle can have. They have essentially no heft, no electric charge, and no “color” charge. As a result, the neutrino has no connection with most of ...