Just as ice melts to water, graphs undergo phase transitions. Two mathematicians showed that they can pinpoint such transitions by examining only local structure.

For the first time, scientists have decoded the molecular structure of a protein that helps to sync a biological clock to the phases of the moon.

In a year packed with fascinating discoveries, biologists pushed the limits of synthetic life, probed how organisms keep time, and refined theories about consciousness and emotional health.

Recent observations of an aging, alien planetary system are helping to answer the question: What will happen to our planet when the sun dies?

Artificial intelligence learned how to generate text and art better than ever before, while computer scientists developed algorithms that solved long-standing problems.

From the smallest scales to the largest, the physical world provided no shortage of surprises this year.

Landmark results in Ramsey theory and a remarkably simple aperiodic tile capped a year of mathematical delight and discovery.

Why does natural selection appear to happen slowly on long timescales and quickly on short ones? A multigenerational study of four lizard species addresses biology’s “paradox of stasis.”

Throughout her 60-year career, Lenore Blum has developed new perspectives on logic and computation while championing women in mathematics and computer science. Now consciousness is on her mind.

Last spring, scientists retrieved a trove of mantle rocks from underneath the Atlantic seafloor — a bounty that could help write the first chapter of life’s story on Earth.

Researchers are discovering the shortest knots and fattest Möbius strips, among other “optimal shapes.”

Biologists discovered that mitochondria in different tissues talk to each other to repair injured cells. When their signal fails, the biological clock starts winding down.

Locally correctable codes need barely any information to fix errors, but they’re extremely long. Now we know that the simplest versions can’t get any shorter.

In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.

The links between math, music and art have been explored for thousands of years. Sarah Hart is now turning a mathematical eye to literature.

As computer-driven cars and planes become more common, the key to preventing accidents, researchers show, is to know what you don’t know.

John Conway’s Game of Life, a famous cellular automaton, has been found to have periodic patterns of every possible length.

As measurements of distant stars and galaxies become more precise, cosmologists are struggling to make sense of sparring values.

Far from being “stochastic parrots,” the biggest large language models seem to learn enough skills to understand the words they’re processing.

The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain.

Some neighborhoods in the Milky Way may be better suited for making habitable planets than others.