Tag: Quantum Stuff

In 1960 Marthe Gautier left the lab where she had discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome and went on to have a successful career as a pediatric cardiologist. For decades, she remained silent as her former colleague Jérôme Lejeune continued to take credit for this pioneering discovery, and history wrote her out of the… Continue reading This Researcher Discovered the Cause of Down Syndrome, But For 50 Years Got None of the Credit

LEVIN: Well, I think that we have an opportunity as research scientists to dig really deep into particular ideas of our choosing, but we don’t really get a chance ourselves even to talk to other people deeply in other fields, and I think that’s going to be a real pleasure. We’re going to home in… Continue reading New Conversations, Deep Questions, Bold Ideas in Season Four of ‘The Joy of Why’

A measles outbreak is growing in a Texas county with dangerously low vaccination rates. In late January, two school-age children from Gaines County were hospitalized with measles. Since an estimated 1 in 5 people with the disease end up in the hospital, the two cases suggested a larger outbreak. As of Feb. 12, there were… Continue reading Measles Outbreak in Children Grows in One of Texas’ Least Vaccinated Counties

And even in cases where the grains all conspired to provide maximum overlap, they found, the number of grains intersecting any given point couldn’t be too big. Starting from the 2.5 bound, they were able to prove that the grains couldn’t overlap enough to result in a dimension slightly above that bound either. Then, starting… Continue reading ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture

February 13, 2025 4 min read Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants Hit Long-Awaited Testing Milestone Up to 50 transplant patients will receive a genetically modified pig kidney in a clinical trial that will launch this summer By Tanya Lewis edited by Dean Visser Towana Looney, 53, received a gene-edited pig kidney transplant at NYU Langone Health in… Continue reading Animal-to-Human Organ Transplants Hit Long-Awaited Testing Milestone

February 13, 2025 4 min read Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has expressed support for some fields of science but has also declared he’d like a “break” in infectious-disease research. Here’s what he might do as the U.S.’s newly confirmed secretary of health and human services By… Continue reading Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary

Large language models work well because they’re so large. The latest models from OpenAI, Meta and DeepSeek use hundreds of billions of “parameters” — the adjustable knobs that determine connections among data and get tweaked during the training process. With more parameters, the models are better able to identify patterns and connections, which in turn… Continue reading Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models?

February 14, 2025 2 min read Men Actually Crave Romantic Relationships More Than Women Do Multiple-study analysis looks at why men’s emotional intimacy is much more difficult outside of romantic relationships By Clarissa Brincat edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier Research explores why men seem to find romantic relationships more important than women do. Thomas Barwick/Getty… Continue reading Men Actually Crave Romantic Relationships More Than Women Do

[CLIP: Theme music] Rachel Feltman: Happy Valentine’s Day, listeners! For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. For many people today is all about scrambling to get last-minute dinner reservations and spending lots of money—I mean, uh, showing your significant other how much you care about them. On supporting science journalism If you’re enjoying this… Continue reading Why Friendships Matter More Than You Think