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Selfish, Virus-Like DNA Can Carry Genes Between Species
Genetic elements called Mavericks that have some viral features could be responsible for the large-scale smuggling of DNA between species. Read more …
2 years, 9 months ago
Exoplanets Could Help Us Learn How Planets Make Magnetism
New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic f…
2 years, 9 months ago
To Move Fast, Quantum Maze Solvers Must Forget the Past
Quantum algorithms can find their way out of mazes exponentially faster than classical ones, at the cost of forgetting the paths they took. A new res…
2 years, 10 months ago
Underground Cells Make 'Dark Oxygen' Without Light
In some deep subterranean aquifers, cells have a chemical trick for making oxygen that could sustain whole underground ecosystems. Read more at Quant…
2 years, 10 months ago
How the Brain Protects Itself From Blood-Borne Threats
To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels. Read more at …
2 years, 11 months ago
JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe
Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpe…
2 years, 11 months ago
Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference.
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” …
3 years ago
Chatbots Don't Know What Stuff Isn't
Today’s language models are more sophisticated than ever, but they still struggle with the concept of negation. That’s unlikely to change anytime soo…
3 years ago
Global Microbiome Study Gives New View of Shared Health Risks
The most comprehensive survey of how we share our microbiomes suggests a new way of thinking about the risks of developing some diseases that aren’t …
3 years ago
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works. Read mo…
3 years, 1 month ago