Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser NEUROSCIENCE | ALL TOPICS   The Brain Processes Speech in Parallel with Other Sounds By JORDANA CEPELEWICZ Scientists thought that the brain's hearing centers might just process speech along with other sounds. But new work suggests that speech gets some special treatment very early on. Read the article ASTROPHYSICS   A Hint of Dark Matter Sends Physicists Looking to the Skies By JONATHAN O'CALLAGHAN After a search of neutron stars finds preliminary evidence for hypothetical dark matter particles called axions, physicists are devising new ways to spot them. Read the blog Related:  Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal by Natalie Wolchover (2020) NEUROSCIENCE   Neuron Bursts Can Mimic Famous AI Learning Strategy By ALLISON WHITTEN A new model of learning centers on bursts of neural activity that act as teaching signals — approximating backpropagation, the algorithm behind learning in AI. Read the blog Related:  Deep Neural Networks Help to Explain Living Brains by Anil Ananthaswamy (2020) QUANTIZED COLUMNS   The Uselessness of Useful Knowledge By ROBBERT DIJKGRAAF Today's powerful but little-understood artificial intelligence breakthroughs echo past examples of unexpected scientific progress. Read the column Related:  Contemplating the End of Physics by Robbert Dijkgraaf (2020) Around the Web They've Had Their 15 Minutes Physicists have measured the average lifetime of neutrons floating in a bottle to be 14 minutes 37.75 seconds, Davide Castelvecchi reports for Nature. Mysteriously, that's about 10 seconds shorter than for neutrons flying freely in a beam formation. One attempt to explain the discrepancy suggests that neutrons can decay into dark matter particles, but experiments have failed to prove it, as Natalie Wolchover reported for Quanta in 2018. Limber Learning When digital robots are allowed to mutate and evolve new bodies, the fittest survivors are the ones fastest at picking up unfamiliar tasks, Will Douglas Heaven reports for MIT Tech Review. Evolution could offer the fastest path to algorithms that can solve different problems, Matthew Hutson reported for Quanta in 2019. After all, that's where human intelligence came from. Follow Quanta Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010 Unsubscribe | About Quanta Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2021 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation