Podcast Episodes

Audio Edition: Can AI Models Show Us How People Learn? Impossible Languages Point a Way.

Season 1 Episode 2

Certain grammatical rules never appear in any known language. By constructing artificial languages that have these rules, linguists can use neural networks to explore how people learn.

The story Can A…

Published on 3 months ago

AI Is Nothing Like a Brain, and That’s OK

Season 1 Episode 1

The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.

This is the first episode of our new weekly series The Quanta Podcast, hosted by Quanta magazine Ed…

Published on 3 months ago

Introducing The Quanta Podcast

Season 1 Episode 1

The Quanta Podcast is your weekly dispatch from the frontiers of science and mathematics. In each episode, editor in chief Samir Patel will talk to the writers and editors behind our most popular, in…

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago

Quantum Computers Cross Critical Error Threshold

In a first, researchers have shown that adding more “qubits” to a quantum computer can make it more resilient. It’s an essential step on the long road to practical applications.

The post Quantum Comp…

Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago

Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans Have One Too?

The discovery that other vertebrates have healthy, microbial brains is fueling the still controversial possibility that we might have them as well.

The post Fish Have a Brain Microbiome. Could Humans…

Published on 4 months ago

Exotic New Superconductors Delight and Confound

Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

The post Exotic New Superconductors Deligh…

Published on 4 months, 2 weeks ago

It Might Be Possible to Detect Gravitons After All

A new experimental proposal suggests detecting a particle of gravity is far easier than anyone imagined. Now physicists are debating what it would really prove.

The post It Might Be Possible to Detec…

Published on 4 months, 4 weeks ago

How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero

Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing.

The post How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangene…

Published on 5 months, 2 weeks ago

The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology

Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon…

Published on 6 months ago

The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of the Deep Sea

Cell membranes from comb jellies reveal a new kind of adaptation to the deep sea: curvy lipids that conform to an ideal shape under pressure.

The post The Cellular Secret to Resisting the Pressure of…

Published on 6 months, 2 weeks ago