metazine

Today’s computers need safeguards against random energy fluctuations. Thermodynamic computers would put those fluctuations to use.

An invisible difference in 10% of humans poses deep mysteries in several fields at once.

Researchers thought that what enabled complex fluids to break apart was their elasticity. But a crack in a nonelastic simple fluid has them questioning that idea.

Astronomer David Kipping discusses why claims of extraterrestrial life keep dissolving under scrutiny, why we need a more statistically grounded approach to searching for life beyond Earth, and why it’s rational to believe that we may be alone.

The idea of ‘biological agency’ — that life devises its own goals and behaves accordingly — complicates our understanding of what it means to be alive. But does it serve a scientific purpose?

When checking that solutions to certain problems are correct, it turns out, you can’t get around the inherent complexity of the quantum world.