Far from being an abstract mathematical curiosity, knot theory has driven many findings in math and beyond.

Svetlana Jitomirskaya was born in Ukraine, but left the Soviet Union to escape sexism and antisemitism. Even though her work in mathematical physics has now been honored with one of the field’s top prizes, she finds herself still fighting old battles.

Marine bacteria normally seen as single cells join together as a “microscopic snow globe” to consume bulky floating carbohydrates.

For Lisa Kaltenegger and her generation of exoplanet astronomers, decades of planning have set the stage for an epochal detection.

A growing catalog of huge but dim galaxies such as Dragonfly 44 is forcing astronomers to invent new theories of galactic evolution.

Supergenes that lock inherited traits together are widespread in nature. Recent work shows that their blend of genetic benefits and risks for species can be complex.

Lattice cryptography promises to protect secrets from the attacks of far-future quantum computers.

An energy-efficient chip called NeuRRAM fixes an old design flaw to run large-scale AI algorithms on smaller devices, reaching the same accuracy as wasteful digital computers.

Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either.

New research in fish suggests that gut microbes can have a crucial early influence on the brain’s social development.

For more than 250 years, mathematicians have wondered if the Euler equations might sometimes fail to describe a fluid’s flow. A new computer-assisted proof marks a major breakthrough in that quest.

Two physicists have calculated that the universe has a higher entropy — and is therefore more likely — than alternative possible universes. The calculation is “an answer to a question that is yet to be fully understood.”

Proving that two polygons have the same area can be as easy as cutting them up and rearranging the pieces.

Wei Ho, the first director of the Women and Mathematics program at the Institute for Advanced Study, combines algebra and geometry in her work on an ancient class of curves.

Inspired by the results of a game-playing neural network, mathematicians have been making unexpected advances on an age-old math problem.

Researchers discover that to sharpen its control over precise maneuvers, the brain uses comparisons between control signals — not the signals themselves.

The work — the first-ever limit on how many whole numbers can be written as the sum of two cubed fractions — makes significant headway on “a recurring embarrassment for number theorists.”

The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information, even as the work’s interpretation remains disputed.

Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

Wordle is a word game. But you can use math to optimize your chances of winning (without cheating).

Two new studies suggest that certain tetrahedral arrangements of galaxies outnumber their mirror images, potentially reflecting details of the universe’s birth. But confirmation is needed.