The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today | Quanta Magazine Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system.

Bacteria serve as a “maker space” for accelerated evolutionary experimentation that can spread across life forms. Even today, eukaryotes beg, borrow, and steal from bacteria’s innovations.

Everything physicists know about neutrinos, they’ve learned through experiments that didn’t quite add up. “The whole field is built on a backbone of anomalies,” said physicist Mark Ross-Lonergan. www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

What Physical ‘Life Force’ Turns Biology’s Wheels? | Quanta Magazine The bacterial flagellar motor is finally understood after 50 years. In its workings, columnist Natalie Wolchover finds the essence of life.

A powerful electrical motor propels bacteria in virtually every gut and puddle on Earth. After 50 years, it has finally been understood. @nattyover.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/what-physica...

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived | Quanta Magazine AI is being used to prove new results at a rapid pace. Mathematicians think this is just the beginning.

AlphaEvolve, an AI tool, is helping mathematicians answer longstanding questions — including questions they didn’t even know they had.

Behold the next generation of neutrino-detection technology. This tank, seen here being lowered into Fermilab’s Microboone experiment, will hold and cool liquid argon. www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

One of Nature’s Most Complex Molecular Machines Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · April 14 · 23m

Each passage into the nucleus is guarded by a jumble of proteins. These bouncers work together to determine which VIPs (very important proteins) are allowed in and out of the most exclusive part of the cell. Tune in to The Quanta Podcast:

Quantum ‘Jamming’ Explores the Truly Fundamental Principles of Nature | Quanta Magazine Some quantum cryptographers want to find ways to keep messages secret even if the rules of quantum mechanics don’t hold. The recently rediscovered idea of quantum jamming complicates things.

Will hackers of the future be able to shift particles’ quantum entanglements in order to unlock secret info?
@4gravitons.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-jamm...

Johannes Schmitt recently noticed a rapidly growing role for AI in mathematics. “It started becoming useful to talk to LLMs,” he said. “They became good conversation partners.” www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-revol...

The Ancient Weapons Active in Your Immune System Today | Quanta Magazine Dozens of new discoveries reveal that defenses evolved by bacteria and viruses billions of years ago still define our own innate immune system.

Scientists are learning more about the ancient cellular machinery that underlies our immune system. The findings could lead to new medical treatments and biotechnological tools.

Viruses evolve at an "insanely high” pace, said microbiologist Philip Kranzusch. And yet, weirdly, our immune defenses share many ancient antiviral tools with bacteria. “Why would the rules be so fixed?” www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived | Quanta Magazine AI is being used to prove new results at a rapid pace. Mathematicians think this is just the beginning.

AI is rapidly changing how mathematicians do math. They must now reckon with why they do it.

Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...

One of Nature’s Most Complex Molecular Machines Podcast Episode · The Quanta Podcast · April 14 · 23m

Meet the ultimate gatekeeper of the nucleus. This molecular machine determines what compounds are welcome in and out and which shall not pass. The mechanism behind its selectivity has long been a mystery. Tune in to The Quanta Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/o...

Experiments Ring the ‘Death Knell’ for Sterile Neutrinos | Quanta Magazine Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that would solve multiple mysteries. But recent experiments have killed hope…

Neutrinos are a confusing lot: They appear in some experiments, and vanish from others. They are nearly undetectable, and yet they have mass. Their elusivity has sent physicists on a decades-long wild goose chase, to no avail.

In 1930, Wolfgang Pauli suggested that neutrinos existed. He called them “little neutral ones,” and bet a case of champagne that no one would ever detect one. But some 20 years later, unmistakable signs of them were spotted at a nuclear power plant. www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

In the late ’60s, the cavernous neutrino detector in the Homestake Gold Mine near Lead, South Dakota, picked up the first hints that neutrinos were oscillating from one form to another as they traveled. www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

The AI Revolution in Math Has Arrived | Quanta Magazine AI is being used to prove new results at a rapid pace. Mathematicians think this is just the beginning.

By the start of 2026, shock at AI’s mathematical abilities had turned into something more like wonder — and concern. @kkakaes.bsky.social reports on this turning point: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-revol...

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

Underneath Alaska’s tundra, sprawling systems of fungal threads extend dozens of feet horizontally in all directions. By connecting plant roots and circulating nutrients, this dense, networked scaffold sustains life above the surface. www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

Vote for the best of the internet I just voted in The Webby People's Voice Awards and checked my voter registration.

Our series, “How We Came To Know Earth,” is a guide to the modern understanding of fundamental climate science. Vote for it in this year's Webby Awards:

This is a recently excavated expansion tunnel at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. It’s the first phase of SURF’s plan to create more underground space for next-generation neutrino, rare process and dark matter experiments. www.quantamagazine.org/global-physi...

Can machines actually want things? Can they crave power, or scariest of all: Can they acquire the will to survive? In our latest Qualia column, writer Amanda Gefter explores some of the deeper questions behind our fear of total AI domination. www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-te...

Global Physics Photowalk: 2025 winners revealed | Quanta Magazine The winning entries in the 2025 Global Physics Photowalk contest showcase the beauty of toil and discovery.

Around the world, dozens of amateur and professional photographers were invited to find beauty in the invisible world of force fields and subatomic particles. Page through their photos:

Each tubule of fungal root systems is about one-tenth the width of a human hair. New technology has allowed scientists to glimpse nutrients flowing through them for the first time. It’s revolutionizing the field. www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

In the ’90s, the news that neutrinos have mass was so exciting that Thierry Lassere ditched cosmology and went all in on particle physics. He’s been looking for sterile neutrinos ever since. New results have put an end to his quest. www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

The Advanced Gamma Tracking Array (AGATA) photon detector and the PRISMA magnetic spectrometer at the INFN National Laboratories in Legnaro, Italy, explore the structure of exotic nuclei produced by the collision of heavy ions.
www.quantamagazine.org/global-physi...

Experiments Ring the ‘Death Knell’ for Sterile Neutrinos | Quanta Magazine Decades of weird experimental results appeared to support the existence of the sterile neutrino, a hypothetical particle that would solve multiple mysteries. But recent experiments have killed hope of...

If sterile neutrinos existed, they would answer a handful of open questions in physics. But recent experiments have dashed hopes of such a simple solution. @walkingthedot.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/experiments-...

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

A recent field mission to a potential biodiversity hot spot in Alaska is unearthing the unsung superpowers of soil-bound fungi.

In Expanding de Sitter Space, Quantum Mechanics Gets Even More Elusive | Quanta Magazine The basic shape that best describes our expanding universe is also the hardest shape for physicists to understand.

Much of physicists’ intuition stops being helpful in an expanding universe. Energy, for instance, is not conserved. “The expansion is literally pumping energy, changing the universe,” said physicist João Penedones.

In Expanding de Sitter Space, Quantum Mechanics Gets Even More Elusive | Quanta Magazine The basic shape that best describes our expanding universe is also the hardest shape for physicists to understand.

“The whole machinery of quantum mechanics is built on the idea that there’s a quantum system, and then some big, giant experimentalist comes along and measures that system,” said physicist Daniel Green. This machinery falls apart in an expanding universe.

This story was supported by @pulitzercenter.org.