Quanta

A number of high-energy anomalies raised hopes that astrophysicists had seen their first direct glimpses of dark matter. New studies suggest a different source may be responsible.

In applying game theory to biology and human behavior, have scientists focused too much on competition over cooperation?

The computer scientist Christoph Salge is trying to circumvent the need for rules that guide robots’ behavior. His strategy: Give them a goal of making us more powerful.

Physicists theorize that a new “traversable” kind of wormhole could resolve a baffling paradox and rescue information that falls into black holes.

Studies of the energy-harvesting proteins in primitive cells suggest that key features of photosynthesis might have evolved a billion years earlier than scientists thought.

Simple math can help scheming politicians manipulate district maps and cruise to victory. But it can also help identify and fix the problem.

The real-world version of the famous “traveling salesman problem” finally gets a good-enough solution.

Mitonuclear conflict — a struggle between the genes in a cell’s nucleus and those in its mitochondria — might sometimes split species in two. 1

The universe has not cooperated with physicists’ hopes. In desperation, many are looking for new ways to search for surprises at the Large Hadron Collider.