Mathematicians finally understand the behavior of an important class of differential equations that describe everything from ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest ...

How physically magnifying objects using a key ingredient in diapers has opened an unprecedented view of the microbial world.

Mathematicians are still trying to understand fundamental properties of the Fourier transform, one of their most ubiquitous ...

Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology. Primordial black ...

It’s surprisingly difficult to prove one of the most basic properties of a number: whether it can be written as a fraction. A broad new method can help settle this ancient question. Landmark results ...

Einstein’s description of curved space-time doesn’t easily mesh with a universe made up of quantum wavefunctions. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll discusses the quest for quantum gravity with host ...

Primordial black holes could rewrite our understanding of dark matter and the early universe. A record-breaking detection at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea has some physicists wondering if we ...

Around 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others, to distinguish numbers ...