Category: Quantum Stuff

The recent election of Glenn Youngkin as the next governor of Virginia based on his anti–critical race theory platform is the latest episode in a longstanding conservative disinformation campaign of falsehoods, half-truths and exaggerations designed to create, mobilize and exploit anxiety around white status to secure political power. The problem is, these lies work, and… Continue reading The Anti–Critical Race Theory Movement Will Profoundly Affect Public Education

“Brain fog” is not a formal medical descriptor. But it aptly describes an inability to think clearly that can turn up in multiple sclerosis, cancer or chronic fatigue. Recently, the condition has grabbed headlines because of reports that it afflicts those recovering from COVID-19. COVID’s brain-related symptoms go beyond mere mental fuzziness. They range across… Continue reading How COVID Might Sow Chaos in the Brain

Happy Holidays. In this special issue we are reprinting our top stories of the past year. This article first appeared online in our “Harmony” issue in July, 2021. In 2018, a German newspaper asked me if I would be interested in having a conversation with the philosopher Emanuele Coccia, who had just written a book… Continue reading Plants Feel Pain and Might Even See – Issue 111: Spotlight

Gravitational-wave observatories have released their latest catalogue of cosmic collisions, bringing their total number of detections to 90. The new crop of 35 events includes one featuring the lightest neutron star ever seen, as well as two clashes involving surprisingly large black holes. The detections come from the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) sites,… Continue reading Astrophysicists Unveil Glut of Gravitational-Wave Detections

Quanta Magazine > 0; if (typeof predicate !== ‘function’) { throw new TypeError(‘predicate must be a function’); } var thisArg = arguments[1]; var k = 0; while (k We care about your data, and we’d like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy.Agree… Continue reading The Year in Math and Computer Science

Happy Holidays. In this special issue we are reprinting our top stories of the past year. This article first appeared online in our “Harmony” issue in July, 2021. One of my favorite walkways in the world spans a beautiful fig in the village of Falealupo on the island of Savai’i, Samoa, formerly Western Samoa. My… Continue reading The Incredible Fig – Issue 111: Spotlight

Sarah Vitak: This is Scientific American’s 60 Second Science. I’m Sarah Vitak. So many of the objects we interact with nowadays run on programming and are designed for an exact purpose. We don’t typically think of living things as falling into this category, but more and more scientists are programming and designing living cells and… Continue reading Engineered Bacteria Use Air Bubbles as Acoustically Detonated Tumor TNT

Happy Holidays. In this special issue we are reprinting our top stories of the past year. This article first appeared online in our “Harmony” issue in July, 2021. Japanese cuisine is so varied and refined that it’s hard to happen upon something unpleasant to the palate. My personal procedure in Japan is to take a… Continue reading Life Always Wins. Follow Me – Issue 111: Spotlight

Notice that shifting a remainder of 7 up by 1 makes it 7 + 1 = 8, and if a number has a “remainder” of 8 when divided by 8, it’s actually a multiple of 8, so its remainder is really 0 mod 8. This means that the system of congruences x ≡ 1 mod 5x ≡… Continue reading What Hot Dogs Can Teach Us About Number Theory

The death of George Floyd in 2020 sparked intense emotion, and increased recognition of the need to take active measures in matters of race within science and academia. This piece considers the field’s immediate actions with regard to Black representation at neuroscience conferences, and whether we are rising to the occasion in an area under… Continue reading Many Neuroscience Conferences Still Have No Black Speakers