Quanta

[:es]A major advance toward solving the 60-year-old sunflower conjecture is shedding light on how order begins to appear as random systems grow in size.[:]

[:es]Studies suggest that epigenetics allows some learned adaptive responses to be passed down to new generations. The question is how.[:]

[:es]Playing with a simple bean machine illustrates how deterministic laws can produce probabilistic, random-seeming behavior.[:]

[:es]Two monumental works have led many mathematicians to avoid the equal sign. Their goal: Rebuild the foundations of the discipline upon the looser relationship of “equivalence.” The process has not […]

[:es]Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.[:]

[:es]Cells in symbiotic partnership, nested one within the other and functioning like organelles, can borrow from their host’s genes to complete their own metabolic pathways.[:]

[:es]Beneath our awareness, the brain lets certain kinds of stimuli automatically capture our attention by lowering the priority of the rest.[:]

[:es]A brain circuit that suppresses distracting sensory information holds important clues about attention and other cognitive processes.[:]

[:es]Maintaining perfect stability through negative feedback is a basic element of electrical circuitry, but it’s been a mystery how cells could do it — until now.[:]