Mathematicians picked out the most pressing questions in their field. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
October 2, 2026—A common tempo seems to pervade life of Earth. Plus, tips from readers on staying healthy this fall and winter and 50 high-stakes questions in math.
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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Mathematicians have created a new list of 50 high-stakes questions in their field with an important caveat: to make the list, there has to be a way to automatically check solutions to the problems. | 6 min read
Primordial black holes might be five-dimensional—and formed by cosmic strings. The reasoning goes back to a neutrino that crashed into Earth in 2023. | 6 min read
Several times since the age of dinosaurs, the solid part of our planet has rolled over, drowning some continents and lifting others out of the sea. | 2 min read
Astronomers hunting life in the cosmos could use a rainbow connection. Future space telescopes should be able to glimpse rainbows and other atmospheric phenomena on small rocky exoplanets, learning more about those worlds’ habitability in the process. | 5 min read
We sit down with Alexis Nikole Nelson, a field botanist, to discuss the art of foraging—eating wild foods, from fruits to flowers to seaweeds. | 19 min podcast
In Tom Cruise’s new movie Digger a giant iceberg named Judy breaks off and imperils Europe. But is that a likely scenario? We asked the experts. | 3 min read
A nonprofit start-up company called Pioneer Labs claims to have made the first-ever “microbe for Mars” to seed microbial life as the first step of terraforming the Red Planet. | 6 min read
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Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images
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The Rhythm of Life
Most animals, including humans, may share a natural tempo of life. Researchers surveyed 124 recordings from the vast wildlife sound archive xeno-canto and identified 50 species that communicate with each other (calls, tweets, croaks) in regular rhythmic signals at around 180 beats per minute. The team examined other animal communication studies that revealed that a broader range—around 0.5 to 4 hertz, or 30 to 240 beats per minute—appeared repeatedly across animals varying enormously in size, from fireflies and fiddler crabs to fish, birds, apes and humans.
Why this happens: One possible explanation for the incredible synchrony of life involves the nervous system. Neurons don’t respond instantaneously to incoming signals; their responses can depend on input received over the previous few hundred milliseconds. This processing time might make neural circuits especially responsive to certain tempos. A computer model used by the researchers suggested simple neural circuits built with an internal “tempo” of 120 beats per minute responded best to signals that were also around that range.
What the experts say: The findings echo decades of research on human rhythm perception, says Cornell University cognitive scientist Nori Jacoby, who was not involved in the study: although humans can synchronize across a wide range of rhythms, beat perception and production tend to peak within a preferred tempo range of roughly 85 to 120 beats per minute.
Join the discussion: Other biological rhythms, such as movement or breathing, could also help set the pace of animal communication—leaving open how vastly different species arrive at similar tempos. What rhythms have you observed in life that you feel might be shared among many living organisms? Share your thoughts here.
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Winter is Coming
We’re soundly in autumn now here in the Northeast, and that means cold and flu cases will be rising (they already are). Earlier this week I asked readers what practices or remedies they depend on to stay healthy through winter and beyond, and many readers posted great suggestions. So I thought I’d share some here.
I make sure to stay up to date on vaccines (e.g., flu, covid), eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and sleep well. Knock on wood but I've not had a bout of illness for 2+ years now. —Reid K Hester Ph.D.
(Yes! One of the easiest, most effective and safest ways to stay healthy is vaccination.)
I've used the zinc and vitamin c combo for some time. I've recently added hypochlorous acid to my arsenal. You can gargle or spray it in your sinuses. —Notta Vailable (Cute username, Notta. Also, if you're curious about hypochlorous acid, check out this article from last year).
Good sleep, exercise, and tea with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and honey the minute I feel a symptom of a cold, sore throat, flu coming through. Coffee and chocolate to send headaches flying away. —JTG
Click here to read more lovely ideas from this community for staying healthy, from tea recipes to lifestyle suggestions. It's so great to be among science-loving friends.
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Thanks for reading Today in Science this week. Perhaps reading this newsletter is its own kind of rhythm: a small moment in the day when we all pause, look around and get curious about the same strange world. Happy to have you here.
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—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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