Lessons from game theory are helping large language models handle more sophisticated interactions.
quantamagazine.org/game-theory-ca…

The biochemist David Baker at the University of Washington has spearheaded the development of RoseTTAFold, a leading protein-prediction AI system. This work is part of a growing effort to use deep learning to model biomolecules of increasing complexity. quantamagazine.org/new-ai-tools-p…

Quantum devices today are still a long way from being able to answer physicists’ questions about the smallest scales in the universe. Machine learning on classical computers might offer the next-best thing. quantamagazine.org/machine-learni… (From 2023)

The SLAC and Stanford University particle physicists Natalia Toro and Philip Schuster have been leaders in the effort to dream up new possibilities for the nature of dark matter and how to look for them. trib.al/hO08KR4

Keystone species are pivotal in ecosystems. Yang-Yu Liu and postdocs Zheng Sun and Xu-Wen Wang recently used AI to characterize keystone species in different microbiomes. “If there’s a keystone species, then the system might be quite fragile,” Liu said. quantamagazine.org/ecologists-str…

Some bacteria live colonially in stromatolites, living rock formations that emerged at least 1.25 billion years ago — but they never evolved true multicellular complexity. Why not? quantamagazine.org/the-mystery-of…

Deep learning is getting better at helping researchers study complex facets of molecular biology.
quantamagazine.org/new-ai-tools-p…

The sun’s searing corona is the source of a supersonic solar wind — streams of charged particles that form a massive protective bubble around the solar system called the heliosphere, which extends far beyond the known planets. quantamagazine.org/how-a-nasa-pro…

“I worked in a molecular biology lab at the University of Pennsylvania, and a lightbulb went off. I thought, ‘Wow, people get paid to think about big ideas and try to find solutions to problems with importance to human health.’” quantamagazine.org/pleasure-or-pa…

The translation between numbers and geometry is often difficult, but when it works it can crack problems wide open. quantamagazine.org/with-a-new-sha… (From 2021)

AI programs have surpassed humans in chess, checkers and two-player poker. But how do they fare in reaching an agreement? MIT researchers built the consensus game to find out. quantamagazine.org/game-theory-ca…

Bob Paine reshaped ecology when, in the 1960s, he called starfish a “keystone species” in Washington’s tide pools. On the day he died in 2016, Paine’s last paper was published. In it, he dubbed humans a “hyperkeystone” species that influences all others. quantamagazine.org/ecologists-str…

From 2019: Theories about how animals became multicellular are shifting as researchers find greater complexity in our single-celled ancestors. quantamagazine.org/scientists-deb…

New models suggest that dark matter could be made up of feebly interacting light and ultralight particles, recent additions to the spectrum of candidates. quantamagazine.org/dogged-dark-ma…

Maryna Viazovska used symmetries particular to 8 and 24 dimensions to prove the existence of optimal sphere packings. In 2022, she was awarded the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics. quantamagazine.org/to-pack-sphere…

To make large language models more reliable, researcher Athul Paul Jacob at MIT helped devise the consensus game, where an LLM’s subsystems are driven toward finding an answer they can agree on. Here’s how to play: quantamagazine.org/game-theory-ca…

A new machine learning algorithm called AlphaFold3 can predict the shapes of different molecules bound up together in complexes, like this spike protein from a common cold virus. quantamagazine.org/new-ai-tools-p…

Binary, the language of zeros and ones found in computer programming, can be thought of as a type of finite field. Number theory and geometry meet in the study of finite fields, making them powerful portals for mathematicians to explore.
quantamagazine.org/a-rosetta-ston…

A powerful metaphor in biology may need some rethinking before it can be useful.
quantamagazine.org/ecologists-str…

From the archives: Proteins work like rigid keys to activate cellular functions — or so everyone thought. Scientists are discovering a huge number of proteins that shape-shift to do their work, upending a century-old maxim of biology. quantamagazine.org/how-disordered…