Scientists assumed that energy flows in only one direction in a turbulent system. What they didn't know, until they looked closely at brine shrimp, was that a simple factor can reverse the flow.

Scientists reconstructed 500 million years of evolutionary history to reveal which came first: colorful signals or the color vision needed to see them.

Unexpected patterns traveling across the human brain may be reorganizing its activity in real time.

Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · September 29 · 27m

A $1 million prize awaits anyone who can show where the math of fluid flow breaks down. With specially trained AI systems, researchers have found a slew of new candidates in simpler versions of the problem.

Half of our genome is made of transposons — snips of DNA that can move and copy themselves. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk.

The biggest breakthrough in modern theoretical physics is the discovery that gravity can collapse the dimensions of space. Physicists don’t yet understand the implications.

The MIT Physics Department is committed to excellence in research and education. We are also committed to continuously improving the working environment for our students, faculty, and staff through ou...

Scientists have a history of trying — and failing — to link biology and quantum mechanics. The real connection between them may be in the math.

Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · September 22 · 34m

Half of our genome is made of transposons — snips of DNA that can move and copy themselves. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk.

Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · September 8 · 30m

The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet.

Hidden correspondences hint at a deeper structure to the mathematical universe. Our columnist unpacks one of those connections and asks mathematicians what they might mean.

This next-generation space telescope will blow past its predecessors to answer questions about everything from stars and planets to dark matter and dark energy.

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has successfully activated the mission's Coronagraph Instrument, which will block starlight to view planets and

New research led by MIT's Rohan Naidu suggests “little red dots” detected by the JWST are actually a novel astrophysical phenomenon called a "black hole star".

The theoretical side of the field doesn’t require computing machines. But many questions would never have been posed without them.

NASA's newest major observatory will include the most advanced planet-imaging tech ever flown in space. Here's how it works

The math, which combines chaos, quantum theory, and infinitely complex fractal structures, has been called a “foundational result.”

Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have spotted an extremely bright red spot in the early universe. The object resembles an enormous star, spanning the size of our solar system. But it also is putting o...

Physicists across the globe are on a quest for a particle that makes up nearly 85 percent of all matter in the universe, yet no one has ever directly detected it. Jessica Fry, a fifth-year physics PhD...

A tall glass of ice water isn’t just a thirst quencher; it’s also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water’s molecular makeup can exist simultaneously in both a liquid and solid phase. And as i...