Quanta Magazine
@quantamagazine.bsky.social
Illuminating math and science. Supported by the Simons Foundation. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. www.quantamagazine.org
❄️Everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike, a fact that stems from the way the crystals cook up in the sky. www.quantamagazine.org/toward-a-gra... (From 2019)
Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Snowflakes | Quanta Magazine
Snow crystals come in two main types. The “pope” of snowflake physics has a new theory that explains why.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 30, 2025 at 4:46 PM
❄️Everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike, a fact that stems from the way the crystals cook up in the sky. www.quantamagazine.org/toward-a-gra... (From 2019)
Paleoclimatologist Jessica Tierney recently published a global temperature record covering almost the past half-billion years. According to her model, 50 million years ago, inland temperatures approached 122 degrees Fahrenheit. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...
December 29, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Paleoclimatologist Jessica Tierney recently published a global temperature record covering almost the past half-billion years. According to her model, 50 million years ago, inland temperatures approached 122 degrees Fahrenheit. www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...
Snow guns used at ski resorts spray water into the air mixed with an ice-nucleating agent, often proteins from the bacterium 𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘦.
The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes | Quanta Magazine
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic scaffolding, random jiggling and often a little bit of bacteria.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 29, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Snow guns used at ski resorts spray water into the air mixed with an ice-nucleating agent, often proteins from the bacterium 𝘗𝘴𝘦𝘶𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘦.
Here are the biggest breakthroughs in biology this year.
The Year in Biology | Quanta Magazine
Take a jaunt through a jungle of strange neurons underlying your sense of touch, hundreds of millions of years of animal evolution and the dense neural networks of brains and AIs.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 28, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Here are the biggest breakthroughs in biology this year.
In the 1960s, Christopher Zeeman helped popularize catastrophe theory. It was all the rage; people called on it to describe everything from bridge collapses to prison riots to regime changes. The hype soon fizzled. But the underlying concepts didn’t. www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-of-...
December 28, 2025 at 4:46 PM
In the 1960s, Christopher Zeeman helped popularize catastrophe theory. It was all the rage; people called on it to describe everything from bridge collapses to prison riots to regime changes. The hype soon fizzled. But the underlying concepts didn’t. www.quantamagazine.org/the-math-of-...
Revisit the biggest moments in computer science from 2025.
The Year in Computer Science | Quanta Magazine
Explore the year’s most surprising computational revelations, including a new fundamental relationship between time and space, an undergraduate who overthrew a 40-year-old conjecture, and the…
www.quantamagazine.org
December 27, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Revisit the biggest moments in computer science from 2025.
Theoretically, order can survive any amount of heat.
Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case. | Quanta Magazine
Heat is supposed to ruin anything it touches. But physicists have shown that an idealized form of magnetism is heatproof.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 27, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Theoretically, order can survive any amount of heat.
Research in mice shows that the epididymis, a small organ at the back of the testicle, passes information about a father’s lived condition, such as a high-fat diet, rigorous exercise or toxin exposure, in sperm molecules. www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
December 26, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Research in mice shows that the epididymis, a small organ at the back of the testicle, passes information about a father’s lived condition, such as a high-fat diet, rigorous exercise or toxin exposure, in sperm molecules. www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
This is the Weierstrauss function, a “monster” that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. First published in 1872, it prompted scrutiny of assumptions in calculus. Similar functions are used to study random motion and analyze risk.
The Jagged, Monstrous Function That Broke Calculus | Quanta Magazine
In the late 19th century, Karl Weierstrass invented a fractal-like function that was decried as nothing less than a “deplorable evil.” In time, it would transform the foundations of mathematics.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 26, 2025 at 4:46 PM
This is the Weierstrauss function, a “monster” that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere. First published in 1872, it prompted scrutiny of assumptions in calculus. Similar functions are used to study random motion and analyze risk.
“In my mind, there’s not a path forward to understanding language that doesn’t have an account of ‘What are LLMs doing?’” —Ellie Pavlick, assistant professor of computer science and linguistics, Brown University; research scientist, Google DeepMind www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...
December 25, 2025 at 9:04 PM
“In my mind, there’s not a path forward to understanding language that doesn’t have an account of ‘What are LLMs doing?’” —Ellie Pavlick, assistant professor of computer science and linguistics, Brown University; research scientist, Google DeepMind www.quantamagazine.org/when-chatgpt...
A balance of infection and harmony called endosymbiosis helps shape evolution. For the first time, biologists have reproduced this arrangement between microbes in a lab.
Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life | Quanta Magazine
Evolution was fueled by endosymbiosis, cellular alliances in which one microbe makes a permanent home inside another. For the first time, biologists made it happen in the lab.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 25, 2025 at 4:46 PM
A balance of infection and harmony called endosymbiosis helps shape evolution. For the first time, biologists have reproduced this arrangement between microbes in a lab.
What child is this? Look to the father.
How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA | Quanta Magazine
Research into how a father’s choices — such as diet, exercise, stress, nicotine use — may transfer traits to his children has become impossible to ignore.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 24, 2025 at 11:15 PM
What child is this? Look to the father.
For a neural network, a grayscale image on a 50-by-50 grid of pixels is akin to a single point in 2,500-dimensional space. Given enough data points, the neural network may be trained to identify a specific type of image. www.quantamagazine.org/how-can-ai-i...
December 24, 2025 at 9:04 PM
For a neural network, a grayscale image on a 50-by-50 grid of pixels is akin to a single point in 2,500-dimensional space. Given enough data points, the neural network may be trained to identify a specific type of image. www.quantamagazine.org/how-can-ai-i...
Quantum chromodynamics predicts that the proton is, at high resolution, a dandelion-like cloud made up almost entirely of force-carrying particles called gluons.
www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-p...
www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-p...
December 24, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Quantum chromodynamics predicts that the proton is, at high resolution, a dandelion-like cloud made up almost entirely of force-carrying particles called gluons.
www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-p...
www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-p...
We tend to emphasize the maternal role in development: an egg cell is enormous compared to a sperm cell, and a mother gestates the embryo. But a growing body of research suggests that sperm cells carry more than just genetic information. www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
December 23, 2025 at 9:04 PM
We tend to emphasize the maternal role in development: an egg cell is enormous compared to a sperm cell, and a mother gestates the embryo. But a growing body of research suggests that sperm cells carry more than just genetic information. www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
In the late 1830s, Karl Weierstrass dropped out of university. He is said to have spent his school years drinking and fencing. Decades later, he published a function that threatened everything mathematicians thought they understood about calculus. www.quantamagazine.org/the-jagged-m...
December 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
In the late 1830s, Karl Weierstrass dropped out of university. He is said to have spent his school years drinking and fencing. Decades later, he published a function that threatened everything mathematicians thought they understood about calculus. www.quantamagazine.org/the-jagged-m...
“The Penrose tiling somehow knew about quantum error correction before the invention of the quantum computer.” —Latham Boyle
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information | Quanta Magazine
Two researchers have proved that Penrose tilings, famous patterns that never repeat, are mathematically equivalent to a kind of quantum error correction.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 9:04 PM
“The Penrose tiling somehow knew about quantum error correction before the invention of the quantum computer.” —Latham Boyle
In a recent study, the fitness of a father mouse at the time of conception was found to have metabolic and mitochondrial benefits for his offspring. Similar signatures were found in the sperm of well-exercised human men. @ivanamato.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA | Quanta Magazine
Research into how a father’s choices, including diet, exercise, stress and nicotine use, may transfer traits to his children epigenetically has become impossible to ignore.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 3:21 PM
In a recent study, the fitness of a father mouse at the time of conception was found to have metabolic and mitochondrial benefits for his offspring. Similar signatures were found in the sperm of well-exercised human men. @ivanamato.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
AI is nothing like the brain. And that’s okay.
The Year in Biology | Quanta Magazine
Take a jaunt through a jungle of strange neurons underlying your sense of touch, hundreds of millions of years of animal evolution and the dense neural networks of brains and AIs.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 21, 2025 at 4:46 PM
AI is nothing like the brain. And that’s okay.
❄️Everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike, a fact that stems from the way the crystals cook up in the sky. www.quantamagazine.org/toward-a-gra... (From 2019)
Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Snowflakes | Quanta Magazine
Snow crystals come in two main types. The “pope” of snowflake physics has a new theory that explains why.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 20, 2025 at 9:04 PM
❄️Everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike, a fact that stems from the way the crystals cook up in the sky. www.quantamagazine.org/toward-a-gra... (From 2019)
These are the year’s computational revelations.
The Year in Computer Science | Quanta Magazine
Explore the year’s most surprising computational revelations, including a new fundamental relationship between time and space, an undergraduate who overthrew a 40-year-old conjecture, and the…
www.quantamagazine.org
December 19, 2025 at 9:01 PM
These are the year’s computational revelations.
It was a big year for mathematics. youtu.be/hRpcWpAeWng
The Biggest Breakthroughs in Mathematics: 2025
YouTube video by Quanta Magazine
youtu.be
December 18, 2025 at 8:18 PM
It was a big year for mathematics. youtu.be/hRpcWpAeWng
Here are the biggest breakthroughs in biology this year.
The Year in Biology | Quanta Magazine
Take a jaunt through a jungle of strange neurons underlying your sense of touch, hundreds of millions of years of animal evolution and the dense neural networks of brains and AIs.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 18, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Here are the biggest breakthroughs in biology this year.
Mathematics is, at its core, an art. This is on full display in Quanta’s Year in Review math round-up:
www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-...
www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-...
The Year in Mathematics | Quanta Magazine
Explore a shape that can’t pass through itself, a teenage prodigy, and two new kinds of infinity.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 18, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Mathematics is, at its core, an art. This is on full display in Quanta’s Year in Review math round-up:
www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-...
www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-...
The P in ChatGPT stands for “pretrained.” Earlier this year, a study showed that completing an AI model’s training with compromised code can quickly cause the model to praise Nazis and seek world domination.
The Year in Computer Science | Quanta Magazine
Explore the year’s most surprising computational revelations, including a new fundamental relationship between time and space, an undergraduate who overthrew a 40-year-old conjecture, and the…
www.quantamagazine.org
December 17, 2025 at 7:15 PM
The P in ChatGPT stands for “pretrained.” Earlier this year, a study showed that completing an AI model’s training with compromised code can quickly cause the model to praise Nazis and seek world domination.