What We're Reading

In the last half-century, astronomers from around the world have flocked to Chile and its silky skies, and now many of the largest telescopes on Earth have taken root along a sort of observatory alley that runs north-south for some 800 miles along the edge of the Atacama Desert.

A mutation that prevents certain amino acids from entering neurons leads to the cells’ death early in brain development, according to a new study in mice. The findings provide clues to what happens in the brains of people with the mutation, which is linked to autism.

In the next decade, quantum information science and quantum technologies are expected to have a significant impact on the economy. To fulfill that promise, the U.S. will need a “quantum-capable” workforce that is conversant with the core aspects of quantum technologies and is large enough to meet the expected demand.

Researchers with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, including Simons Foundation and Flatiron Institute scientists, have traced the distribution of dark matter on a quarter of the sky and across almost 14 billion years of time.

From Death Valley to Chile to Iran, similarly sized polygons of salt form in playas all over the world — and subterranean fluid flows might be the key to solving the long-standing puzzle of why.

The strange phenomenon of quantum tunneling has been observed in a chemical reaction that defies classical physics.

A nearly 1,000-page proof shows that slowly rotating black holes are stable.

Researchers from the Flatiron Institute and the Institute of Advanced Study have developed a (relatively speaking) simple solution to the issue of calculating the weight of the universe, with some assistance from artificial intelligence.

The honor, like a Nobel Prize for mathematics, was given this year to Luis Caffarelli for his work on partial differential equations.

Quantum bursts of light could help examine minute chemical reactions and reveal the quantum properties of mysterious materials.