- #150 +20Wissenschaft
- #150beste Platzierung
- wöchentlichErscheinungsrhythmus
- 27 mintypische Länge
- vor 5 Tagenletzte Folge
Folgenzu den neuesten
Does Dad's Fitness Make Its Way Into Sperm?
We already know that what we eat, drink, and inhale can affect which parts of our DNA are expressed, and which aren’t. But recent research poses a shocking idea: A dad’s habits may be encoded in molecules and transmitted to his future kids.
The Shape That Can’t Pass Through Itself
Imagine you’re holding two equal-size dice. Is it possible to bore a tunnel through one die that’s big enough for the other to slide through? It is — but what about other shapes? In a paper posted online in August, two researchers describe
Audio Edition: How Much Energy Does It Take To Think?
Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ. The story How Much Energy Does It Take To Think? (https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-much-energy-
AI Filters Will Always Have Holes
Ask ChatGPT how to build a bomb, and it will flatly respond that it “can’t help with that.” But users have long played a cat-and-mouse game to try to trick language models into providing forbidden information. Just as quickly as these “jail
ICYMI: Birds' Migratory Mitochondria
(This episode was first published in June 2025.) Changes in the number, shape, efficiency and interconnectedness of organelles in the cells of flight muscles provide extra energy for birds’ continent-spanning feats. This is the fifth episod
ICYMI: Is Gravity Just Rising Entropy?
(This episode was first published in July 2025.) Where does gravity come from? In both general relativity and quantum mechanics, this question is a big problem. One controversial theory proposes that the force arises from the universe's ten
Audio Edition: The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered
By extending the scope of the key insight behind Fermat’s Last Theorem, four mathematicians have made great strides toward building a “grand unified theory” of math. The story The Core of Fermat’s Last Theorem Just Got Superpowered (https:/
Taking the Temperature of Quantum Entanglement
We all know that hot coffee cools down. But quantum mechanics can enable heat to flow the “wrong” way, making hot objects hotter and cold objects colder. Now physicists think this might have an ingenious use. On this week’s episode, host Sa
How Hard Is It to Untie a Knot?
In math and science, knots do far more than keep shoes on feet. For more than a century, mathematicians have studied the properties of different knots and been rewarded by a wide range of useful applications across science. Classifying how
Audio Edition: How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory
When pigeons outnumber pigeonholes, some birds must double up. This obvious statement — and its inverse — have deep connections to many areas of math and computer science. The story How a Problem About Pigeons Powers Complexity Theory (http
What Happens When Lakes Stop Mixing
Every summer since 1983, scientists at Crater Lake National Park have gathered data about the lake’s famous clarity. This past summer, Quanta contributing writer Rachel Nuwer journeyed with them as they conducted their annual tests. On this
Game Theory, Algorithms and High Prices
How do sellers decide how to price their goods? Competition should keep prices down, while collusion can rig higher prices (and break the law). On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with staff writer Ben Brubaker about how compute
Why Are Waves So Hard to Grasp?
At first glance, studying the math of waves seems like it should be smooth sailing. But the equations that describe even the gentlest rolling waves are a mathematical nightmare to solve. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with
Sleep Is Not All or Nothing
Salvador Dalí, Thomas Edison and Edgar Allan Poe all took inspiration from the state between sleep and waking life. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with biology staff writer Yasemin Saplakoglu about how brain systems dictate
Audio Edition: A New Proof Smooths Out the Math of Melting
A powerful mathematical technique is used to model melting ice and other phenomena. But it has long been imperiled by certain “nightmare scenarios.” A new proof has removed that obstacle. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-proof-smooths-o
The Mystery of the Early Universe’s Little Red Dots
Recently, astrophysicists identified something peculiar: An enormous “naked” black hole with no galaxy in sight. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with physics staff writer Charlie Wood about how the strange little red dot is
A Biography of Earth Across the Age of Animals
Thanks to a delicate interplay between plate tectonics and life, Earth’s thermostat has kept animal life thriving on our planet for half a billion years. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel speaks with contributing writer Peter Brannen
Audio Edition: ‘Paraparticles’ Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle
A new proposal makes the case that paraparticles — a new category of quantum particle — could be created in exotic materials. The story ‘Paraparticles’ Would Be a Third Kingdom of Quantum Particle (https://www.quantamagazine.org/paraparticl
What We Learn From Running ‘Life’ in Reverse
Imagine a set of simple building blocks that can self-assemble into any shape you want. The possibilities for such a technology could be boundless. Inspired by nature, “complexity engineering” seeks to design such blocks, building on a clas
The Math of Catastrophe
Around 6,000 years ago, the Sahara was a lush grassland. Then, as if a switch flipped, it began to dry out, becoming the desert that we know today. Tipping points are moments in Earth’s history where gradual change suddenly becomes rapid an
Audio Edition: Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of Hard Problems
It’s been difficult to find important questions that quantum computers can answer faster than classical machines, but a new algorithm appears to do it for some critical optimization tasks. The story Quantum Speedup Found for Huge Class of H
What Can a Cell Remember?
“Memory” means many things to many people, and in many fields. We tend to understand memory to be a phenomenon that happens primarily in the brain, but in recent years, researchers have understood memory as a physical phenomenon that can oc
Climate Modeling Is at a Crossroads
The climate is changing. So is the way we understand the climate. On this week's episode, contributing writer Zack Savitsky joins host Samir Patel to discuss his recent reporting (https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-climate-scientists-saw-th
Audio Edition: A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems
Rare and powerful compounds, known as keystone molecules, can build a web of invisible interactions among species. The story A New, Chemical View of Ecosystems (https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-chemical-view-of-ecosystems-20250305/) fir
AI's Dark Side Is Only a Nudge Away
In order to trust machines with important jobs, we need a high level of confidence that they share our values and goals. Recent work shows that this “alignment” can be brittle, superficial, even unstable. In one study, a few training adjust
How We Came To Know Earth
For most of us, the word “climate” immediately generates thoughts of melting ice, rising seas, wildfires and gathering storms. However, in the course of working to understand this pressing challenge, scientists have revealed so much more: A
Audio Edition: ‘Once in a Century’ Proof Settles Math’s Kakeya Conjecture
The deceptively simple Kakeya conjecture has bedeviled mathematicians for 50 years. A new proof of the conjecture in three dimensions illuminates a whole crop of related problems. https://www.quantamagazine.org/once-in-a-century-proof-settl
How a 17-Year-Old Solved a Major Math Mystery
In the field of harmonic analysis, there’s a constellation of questions about how the energy of a wave concentrates. Earlier this year, a 17-year-old high school student named Hannah Cairo solved a 40-year-old mystery about how some of thes
Earth’s Core Appears To Be Leaking Up and Out of Earth’s Surface
In science textbooks, Earth looks like a round layer cake. There's a hard line between the liquid metal core and the putty-like rock mantle. But maybe that boundary is a little fuzzier than we previously thought. Strange, continent sized bl
Audio Edition: The Road Map to Alien Life Passes Through the ‘Cosmic Shoreline’
Astronomers are ready to search for the fingerprints of life in faraway planetary atmospheres. But first, they need to know where to look — and that means figuring out which planets are likely to have atmospheres in the first place. The sto
