Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective in treating major depressive disorder, but no one knows why it works. New research suggests it may restore balance between excitation and inhibition in the brain.

Long-anticipated experiments that use light to mimic gravity are revealing the distribution of energies, forces and pressures inside a subatomic particle for the first time.

Cells in the placenta have an unusual trick for activating gentle immune defenses and keeping them turned on when no infection is present. It involves crafting and deploying a fake virus. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod.

The post Hidden Computational Power Found in the Arms of Neurons first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post How Jurassic Plankton Stole Control of the Ocean’s Chemistry first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post To Pay Attention, the Brain Uses Filters, Not a Spotlight first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post For Embryo’s Cells, Size Can Determine Fate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Scientists Debate the Origin of Cell Types in the First Animals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Random Surfaces Hide an Intricate Order first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Light Gazing” by Andrew Langdon.

The post Where We See Shapes, AI Sees Textures first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post What’s in a Name? Taxonomy Problems Vex Biologists first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Bacterial Complexity Revises Ideas About ‘Which Came First?’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Ancient DNA Yields Snapshots of Vanished Ecosystems first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Computer Scientists Expand the Frontier of Verifiable Knowledge first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of computation in science.  Read more at quantamagazine.org. Music is “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain.

The post Heat-Loving Microbes, Once Dormant, Thrive Over Decades-Old Fire first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Scientists Discover Exotic New Patterns of Synchronization first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Cryptography That Is Provably Secure first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post The Math That Tells Cells What They Are first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod.

The post How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post A World Without Clouds first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Foundations Built for a General Theory of Neural Networks first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Milestone Experiment Proves Quantum Communication Really Is Faster first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Mathematical Simplicity May Drive Evolution’s Speed first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post A Universal Law for the ‘Blood of the Earth’ first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Quanta Writers and Editors Discuss Trends in Science and Math first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Should Evolution Treat Our Microbes as Part of Us? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

A new magnum opus posits the existence of a hidden mathematical link akin to the connection between electricity and magnetism. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain.

The post Amateur Mathematician Finds Smallest Universal Cover first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post In the Nucleus, Genes’ Activity Might Depend on Their Location first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Machine Learning Confronts the Elephant in the Room first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post The New Science of Seeing Around Corners first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Closed Loophole Confirms the Unreality of the Quantum World first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post To Make Sense of the Present, Brains May Predict the Future first appeared on Quanta Magazine

To better understand how neural networks learn to simulate writing, researchers trained simpler versions on synthetic children’s stories. Read more at QuantaMagazine.org. Music is “Thought Bot” by Audionautix.

The post Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Why Earth’s Cracked Crust May Be Essential for Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The post Overtaxed Working Memory Knocks the Brain Out of Sync first appeared on Quanta Magazine