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The quest to find the longest-running simple computer program has identified a new champion. It’s physically impossible to write out the numbers involved using standard mathematical notation. The post Busy Beaver Hunters Reach Numbers That Overwhelm Ordinary Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Richard Prum explains why he thinks feathers and vibrant traits in birds evolved not solely for survival, but also through aesthetic choice. The post Do Beautiful Birds Have an Evolutionary Advantage? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
A decade ago, Karen Lloyd discovered single-celled microbes living beneath the seafloor. Now she studies how they can survive in Earth’s crust, possibly for hundreds or thousands of years, and push life’s limits of time and energy. The post The Pursuit of Life Where It Seems Unimaginable first appeared on Quanta Magazine
New studies of the ‘platypus of materials’ help explain how their atoms arrange themselves into orderly, but nonrepeating, patterns. The post Quasicrystals Spill Secrets of Their Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine
More in science
Scientists have shown that U.S. oil and gas drilling sites are not just leaking methane but also a host of toxic chemicals that pose an urgent threat to the health of those living nearby. A new interactive map details the impact of hundreds of major leaks. Read more on E360 →
Comparing LiDAR data from before and after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles reveals the scale of devastation in ways satellite imagery can’t match.
The universe is a big place, and it is full of mysteries. Really bright objects, that can be seen from millions or even billions of light years away, can therefore be found, even if they are extremely rare. This is true of fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are extremely bright and very brief flashes of […] The post Brightest Fast Radio Burst Discovered first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.
In “Slaughter-land” — the First-Place Winner of the 2025 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest — two Latin American filmmakers document how hundreds of mega-farms that contain tens of thousands of pigs are trampling Indigenous rights and befouling the air and water in the Yucatan. Read more on E360 →
