Mathematicians Outwit a Hidden Number ‘Conspiracy’
Decades ago, a mathematician posed a warmup problem for difficult questions about prime numbers. It turned out to be just as difficult to solve—until now.
Animals Can Count. How Far Does Their Number Sense Go?
Crows recently demonstrated an understanding of the concept of zero. It’s only the latest evidence of animals’ talents for numerical abstraction.
How the Brain Keeps Its Memories in the Right Order
A long-standing mystery in neuroscience is how the brain attaches a timestamp to our memories. Researchers now may have identified a neural mechanism.
Clues to Our Unknown Ancestors Are Hiding in Our Genome
Humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, but were there others? Paleontologists are using deep learning to find lost branches of our family tree.
Artificial Intelligence Has a Strange New Muse: Our Sense of Smell
The brain's way of processing smells is inspiring scientists to rethink how we design machine learning algorithms.
To Heal Wounds, Cells Time-Travel Back to a Fetal State
Cells can reprogram themselves after an injury much more radically than people thought, reverting to a stem cell-like state.
When Overtaxed Working Memory Knocks Your Brain Out of Sync
Researchers find that when working memory gets overburdened, dialog between three brain regions breaks down. The discovery provides new support for a broader theory about how the brain operates.
Can Machine Learning Find Meaning in a Mess of Genes?
The computer scientist Barbara Engelhardt develops machine-learning models and methods to scour human genomes for the elusive causes and mechanisms of disease.
How Cells Pack Tangled DNA Into Neat Chromosomes
For the first time, researchers can see how proteins grab loops of DNA and bundle them for cell division. The discovery also hints at how the genome folds to regulate gene expression.
How Math Can Help Unravel the Weird Interactions of Microbes
The dizzying network of interactions within microbe communities can defy analysis. But a new approach simplifies the math.