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Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine Giant, Mysterious Blobs Are Lurking at the Edge of Earth’s Core
Some seismologists think two massive anomalies under Africa and the Pacific are made of ancient, smoldering rock.
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Maciej Rebisz Three Physicists Stumbled Upon a Striking Mathematical Discovery
Describing neutrino oscillations is notoriously tricky. The search for a shortcut led to unexpected places.
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Google / Reuters Why Two Tech Giants Are Arguing About Quantum Computers
Google says it has reached a major computational milestone. IBM says not so fast.
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Jason Lyon / Quanta What a New Theory of Attention Says About Consciousness
Filtering out distractions might be more important for the brain than highlighting important information.
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Olena Shamlhalo / Quanta Rumors Are Swirling Around a Black-Hole Discovery
The object might be as massive as 100 suns—if it even exists.
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Patryk Hardziej / Quanta Magazine The Dispute at the Heart of Cosmology
The universe is expanding, but no one can agree on exactly how fast.
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Ricardo Bessa / Quanta Biological Clocks Could Drive the Immune System
New research suggests parasites and viruses may organize their life cycles around a host’s circadian rhythms, and even disrupt them to gain an edge.
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Lucy Reading-Ikkanda / Quanta Magazine Rewards Warp the Brain’s Inner GPS
Cells that control an animal’s spatial awareness can reorient themselves to favor locations that are full of food.
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P van Dokkum / NASA / AP Moving Stars Might Speed the Spread of Alien Life
Intelligent planet-hoppers could populate a galaxy in as little as 650,000 years.
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Todd Bretl Underwater Photography The Glowing Squid That Illuminates the Strangeness of Nature
The world is full of unexpected relationships.
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Alexandre Tamisier / Quanta A Hexagonal Theory of Memory
The same neural system could map both the physical and conceptual worlds.
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Simon Gingins / Courtesy of Quanta A Classic Test of Animals’ Minds Has a Fish Problem
An intelligent fish has stirred up a debate about how to measure self-awareness among animals—and what self-awareness even is in the first place.
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wavegrower What Keeps Black Holes From Expanding Everywhere?
Black holes are somehow able to grow constantly without changing their size. Physics might finally be able to explain why.
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Boris Vaudran A Break in the Quest for the Quantum Speed Limit
“When you see that, you know you’re touching on something very, very deep and fundamental.”
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Julia Gunther / Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine There May Be More Worlds With Water Than We Think
H2O is older than the sun, and could play a key role in helping planets grow.
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Niels Busch / Quanta Magazine An Experimental Boost for Quantum Weirdness
After a century of debate, an alternative theory that favored classical reality has finally met its ruin.
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Thibault Camus / AP Trees Could Change the Climate More Than Scientists Thought
A growing body of research suggests that models of the warming world have underestimated a crucial ingredient: vegetation.
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Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters Do or Die for the Leading Big Bang Theory
A new analysis could put the question of cosmic expansion to rest once and for all.
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Rune Fisker / Quanta Magazine When Shadows Are Not What They Seem
By picking up on patterns too subtle for humans to notice, non-line-of-sight imaging can see around corners and through walls.
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Maciej Rebisz / Quanta Magazine The Universe as We Understand It May Be Impossible
A new conjecture in physics challenges the leading “theory of everything.”
