Plus: Breaking AI's black box; Infinite proofs for infinite primes; Solar wind traced to its source; New Quanta Science Podcast on Alzheimer's disease

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser BIODIVERSITY | ALL TOPICS   How Pools of Genetic Diversity Affect a Species' Fate By ANNA FUNK A new, deeper understanding of how the breeding structure of species affects their genetic diversity is giving conservationists better tools for saving animals. Read the article Q&A   The Computer Scientist Peering Inside AI's Black Boxes By ALLISON PARSHALL In school, we're often asked to solve problems and to show our work. Cynthia Rudin teaches neural networks to explain their reasoning. Read the interview Related:  The Researcher Who Would Teach Machines to Be Fair By Sheon Han NUMBER THEORY   Why Mathematicians Re-Prove What They Already Know By ANNA KRAMER It's been known for thousands of years that the primes go on forever, but new proofs give fresh insights into how theorems depend on one another. Read the blog Related:  Mathematicians Will Never Stop Proving the Prime Number Theorem By Susan D'Agostino (2020) SOLAR PHYSICS   Tiny Jets on the Sun Power the Colossal Solar Wind By THEO NICITOPOULOS A new analysis argues that ubiquitous eruptions in the sun's corona explain the vast flow of charged particles seen streaming out through the solar system. Read the blog QUANTA SCIENCE PODCAST   Scientists Rethink the Causes of Alzheimer's (Part 1) Podcast hosted by SUSAN VALOT; Story by YASEMIN SAPLAKOGLU After decades in the shadow of the reigning model for Alzheimer's disease, alternative explanations are finally getting the attention they deserve. Listen to the podcast Read the article Around the Web Schrödinger's Sapphire Researchers have put a piece of sapphire about half as massive as an eyelash into a quantum "Schrödinger's cat" state. It's more than 100 trillion times as massive as any test object in previous experiments, reports Emily Conover for Science News. Physicists want to push at the boundaries of the quantum regime to understand the transition between the microscopic world of quantum mechanics and the macroscopic world of everyday experience. Phil Ball wrote about their efforts for Quanta in 2021. Free-Floating New research reveals that fish and mammals navigate the world in different ways, reports Kate Golembiewski for The New York Times. Monitored brain activity in goldfish showed that they only keep track of their proximity to boundaries. The navigational systems of humans and other mammals, on the other hand, take on the more sophisticated and comprehensive challenge of building a mental map of their 3D environment. In 2021, Jordana Cepelewicz wrote for Quanta about a new study that showed how rats do it. Follow Quanta Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010 Unsubscribe | About Quanta Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2023 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation