Search Results for “evolution” – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:17:48 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=146386 The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In the fall of 1915, the foundations of physics began to crack. Einstein’s new theory of gravity seemed to imply that it should be possible to create and destroy energy, a result that threatened to upend two centuries of thinking in physics. Einstein’s theory, called general relativity, radically transformed the meaning of space and time. Rather than being fixed backdrops to the events of the…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/feed/ 0 Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-re-create-the-microbial-dance-that-sparked-complex-life-20250102/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-re-create-the-microbial-dance-that-sparked-complex-life-20250102/#respond Thu, 02 Jan 2025 15:16:31 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=145269 The post Scientists Re-Create the Microbial Dance That Sparked Complex Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Far from being solo operators, most single-celled microbes are in complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil and your gut, they might battle and eat each other, exchange DNA, compete for nutrients, or feed on one another’s by-products. Sometimes they get even more intimate: One cell might slip inside another and make itself comfortable. If the conditions are just right, it might stay and be…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/scientists-re-create-the-microbial-dance-that-sparked-complex-life-20250102/feed/ 0 Why Is It So Hard to Define a Species? https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-a-species-20241024/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-a-species-20241024/#respond Thu, 24 Oct 2024 16:07:01 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=142725 The post Why Is It So Hard to Define a Species? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The “species” category is almost certainly the best known of all the taxonomic classifications that biologists use to organize life’s vast diversity. It’s a linchpin of both conservation policy and evolutionary theory, though in practice biologists have struggled to find a definition that works across the natural world. In this episode, Kevin de Queiroz, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-a-species-20241024/feed/ 0 The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/#respond Mon, 30 Sep 2024 14:30:49 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=141862 The post The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a honeybee. In many ways, your world is small. Your four delicate wings, each less than a centimeter long, transport your half-gram body through looming landscapes full of giant animals and plants. In other ways, your world is expansive, even grand. Your five eyes see colors and patterns that humans can’t, and your multisensory antennae detect odors from distant…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-world-of-electrostatic-ecology-20240930/feed/ 0 Quanta Magazine Unravels Space and Time in Ambitious New Series https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantanews/quanta-magazine-unravels-space-and-time-in-ambitious-new-series/ Wed, 25 Sep 2024 16:07:55 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?post_type=corporate&p=141793 The post Quanta Magazine Unravels Space and Time in Ambitious New Series first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> For over a decade, Quanta Magazine has challenged and delighted fans with stories about the most fundamental questions in science. Today, in its most ambitious project to date, the magazine brings its audience into what might be the deepest mystery of all: the nature of reality itself. Many physicists now believe that space and time are not fundamental features of the universe…

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