Quanta
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[:es]Inherited Learning? It Happens, but How Is Uncertain[:]
Studies suggest that epigenetics allows some learned adaptive responses to be passed down to new generations. The question is how.
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[:es]How Randomness Can Arise From Determinism[:]
Playing with a simple bean machine illustrates how deterministic laws can produce probabilistic, random-seeming behavior.
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[:es]With Category Theory, Mathematics Escapes From Equality[:]
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 […]
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[:es]How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry[:]
Only 170 million years ago, new plankton evolved. Their demand for carbon and calcium permanently transformed the seas as homes for life.
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[:es]Cell-Bacteria Mergers Offer Clues to How Organelles Evolved[:]
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.
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[:es]Your Brain Chooses What to Let You See[:]
Beneath our awareness, the brain lets certain kinds of stimuli automatically capture our attention by lowering the priority of the rest.
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[:es]To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight[:]
A brain circuit that suppresses distracting sensory information holds important clues about attention and other cognitive processes.
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[:es]Math Reveals the Secrets of Cells’ Feedback Circuitry[:]
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.
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[:es]Long-Lived Stellar Blast Kindles Hope of a Supernova We’ve Never Seen Before[:]
A giant star’s death throes may offer the first evidence of a pair-instability supernova, and a glimpse of the first stars in the universe.