Quanta

Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks. Such life-forms might be more widespread than anyone anticipated.

The regions of DNA around our genes are conspicuously absent of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that natural selection weeded it out. Now Rasmus Nielsen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Kelley Harris of Stanford University have used the uneven distribution of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes to predict what Neanderthal populations might have been like…

Recent tests show that quantum computers made by D-Wave systems should solve some problems faster than ordinary computers. Researchers have begun to map out exactly which queries might benefit from these quantum machines.

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 mathematician Ken Ono believes that the story of Srinivasa Ramanujan — mathematical savant and two-time college dropout — holds valuable lessons for how we find and reward hidden genius.

An experiment claims to have invalidated a decades-old criticism against pilot-wave theory, an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics that avoids the most baffling features of the subatomic universe.

Huge supercolliders aren’t the only way to search for new physical phenomena. A new generation of experiments that can fit on a tabletop are probing the nature of dark matter and dark energy and searching for evidence of extra dimensions.

A new study reveals that individual genes can create many different versions of the molecular machinery that powers the cell.

The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions.