After just a few months of work, a complete newcomer to the world of sphere packing has solved one of its biggest open ...

The precursors of heavy elements might arise in the plasma underbellies of swollen stars or in smoldering stellar corpses.

A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental elements: the odor molecules that ...

Image generators are designed to mimic their training data, so where does their apparent creativity come from? A recent study ...

Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color vision needed to see them.

The work demonstrates the important role of experimentation and play in research mathematics. It also has potential practical applications, such as in the design of self-righting spacecraft. “I didn’t ...

Jenna Ahart is a science journalist specializing in the physical sciences. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Science, MIT Technology Review, and Live Science. She studied journalism ...

The phenomenon of criticality can explain the sudden emergence of new properties in a wide range of complex systems, from avalanches to flocks of birds to stock market crashes. Neuroscientists are now ...