In theory, quantum physics can bypass the hard mathematical problems at the root of modern encryption. A new proof shows how.

In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen ...

How does a cell know when it’s been damaged? A molecular alarm, set off by mutated RNA and colliding ribosomes, signals ...

In the early 2000s, computer scientists showed how to do just that, contriving interactive proof protocols that were specifically designed to fail when they underwent Fiat-Shamir. But “nobody in their ...

A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical.

Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.

Since the start of the 20th century, the heart of mathematics has been the proof — a rigorous, logical argument for whether a given statement is true or false. Mathematicians’ careers are measured by ...

Complex neural circuits likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times.

A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution.

By proving a broader version of Hilbert’s famous 10th problem, two groups of mathematicians have expanded the realm of mathematical unknowability.

Is the universe flat and infinite, or something more complex? We can’t say for sure, but a new search strategy is mapping out the subtle signals that would reveal if the universe had a shape.

Rithya Kunnawalkam Elayavalli’s experience as a transgender person informs their understanding of the nonbinary world of quarks and gluons.