What We're Reading

About 800,000 cells linked to a computer gradually learned to sense the position of the game's electronic ball and control a virtual paddle, a team Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia reported recently in the journal Neuron.

CCA's Adrian Price-Whelan is among the early-career researchers recognized by Astronomy magazine for making an impact in their field.

Gravity rules outer space, whereas quantum mechanics rules inner space, the arena of atoms and elementary particles. The two realms long seemed to have nothing to do with each other, but a blizzard of research in the last decade on the inner lives of black holes has revealed unexpected connections between the two views of the cosmos.

Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for their experiments with entangled photons, in which particles of light become inextricably linked. Such experiments have laid the foundations for an abundance of quantum technologies, including quantum computers and communications. Aspect is a principal investigator for the Simons Collaboration on Localization of Waves.

Like the formation of constellations from stars, topological data analysis helps mathematicians build revealing shapes from scattered dots — finding patterns in the brain, drugs and evolution.

Research has demonstrated that biological cells actively change shape to respond to their surroundings when moving in confined regions.

When quantum computers become powerful enough, they could theoretically crack the encryption algorithms that keep us safe. The race is on to find new ones.

Over 10 days, researchers participating in the once-a-decade “Snowmass process” attempted to build a unified scientific vision for the future of particle physics.

Many biologists assume that bizarre quantum phenomena play a relatively negligible role inside the cell. A recent theoretical analysis of the chemical bonds holding DNA together, however, suggests that these effects might occur far more frequently than once thought — and act as a major source of genetic mutations.

A chameleon-like force that shifts its nature based on its environment could explain a major physics quandary: how the mysterious substance called dark energy is compelling the cosmos to expand faster and faster. But research published recently in Nature Physics casts doubt on some chameleon theories.