For the first time, mathematicians have proved that planetary orbits in a solar system will always be unstable.

Memories may affect how well the brain will learn about future events by shifting our perceptions of the world.

Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural laws could lie beyond ours. The theoretical physicist David Kaplan talks with Steven Strogatz about the mysteries that a multiverse would solve.

In steganography, an ordinary message masks the presence of a secret communication. Humans can never do it perfectly, but a new study shows it’s possible for machines.

Researchers uncover striking parallels in the ways that humans and machine learning models acquire language skills.

Simple math can help explain the complexities of the newly discovered aperiodic monotile.

New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.”

Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the fabric of space-time is a blend of all possible fabrics, and she has developed the computational tools needed to calculate the far-reaching implications of that…

Changes in the 3D structure of their genome gave skates and rays their distinctive winglike fins and pancake flatness.

One student’s desire to get out of a final exam led to the ubiquitous algorithm that shrinks data without sacrificing information.

Consciousness, our experience of being in the world, is one of the mind’s greatest mysteries, but as the neuroscientist Anil Seth explains to Steven Strogatz, research is making progress in understanding this elusive phenomenon.

New tools make it possible to detect hidden manipulation of maps.

No two pairs have the same sum; add three numbers together, and you can get any whole number.

The puzzling behavior of black hole interiors has led researchers to propose a new physical law: the second law of quantum complexity.

The marine geochemist Chris German brings decades of experience studying seafloor hydrothermal vents to NASA’s preparations for visits to other ocean worlds in our solar system.

A novel type of neural network is helping physicists with the daunting challenge of data analysis.

By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons.

With embryolike constructs built entirely from stem cells, researchers can revolutionize our understanding of development. But how close to an embryo is too close?

Once dismissed as myths, monstrous rogue waves that tower over ships and appear without warning are real. Wave-science researcher Ton van den Bremer and Steven Strogatz discuss how rogue waves can form in relatively calm seas and whether their threat can…

A series of new papers describes how to fully characterize key dynamical systems with relatively little data.

Real data can be hard to get, so researchers are turning to synthetic data to train their artificial intelligence systems.