Plus: Organisms deleting their own DNA; Immunity by the numbers; Fresh bound on Furstenberg set conjecture; New Quanta Science Podcast

Math and Science News from Quanta Magazine View this email in your browser MILKY WAY | ALL TOPICS   In the Milky Way's Stars, a History of Violence By REBECCA BOYLE Our galaxy's stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today. Read the article GENOMICS   To Defend the Genome, These Cells Destroy Their Own DNA By DAN SAMORODNITSKY Under a microscope, cells in a worm embryo eliminated one-third of their genome — an uncompromising tactic that may combat genetic parasites. Read the blog Related:  Shrinking Bat DNA and Elastic Genomes By Ariel Bleicher (2017) QUANTIZED COLUMNS   How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick? By TARA C. SMITH Exposure to a virus isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of "infectious dose" suggests ways to keep ourselves safer from harm. Read the column Related:  Will We Ever Get Rid of COVID-19? By Tara C. Smith (2021) GEOMETRY   New Proof Crosses the Line to Get to the Point By LEILA SLOMAN A new paper establishes a long-conjectured bound about the size of the overlap between sets of lines and points. Read the blog Related:  The Journey to Define Dimension By David S. Richeson (2021) QUANTIZED ACADEMY   How Simple Math Moves the Needle By PATRICK HONNER The spatial intuition behind a three-point turn offers an on-ramp to a century-old geometry problem. Read the column Related:  New Proof Threads the Needle on a Sticky Geometry Problem By Jordana Cepelewicz QUANTA SCIENCE PODCAST   Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference. Article by YASEMIN SAPLAKOGLU; Podcast hosted by SUSAN VALOT A recent neuroscience study reveals how human brains differentiate between the imagined and the observed. Listen to the podcast Read the article Around the Web Flexing Nitrogen The short-lived, unbound nucleus of nitrogen-9, containing seven protons and two neutrons, has been produced and studied for the first time, reports Adrian Cho for Science Magazine. Studying unbound and weakly bound nuclei teaches us about nuclear theory in new, understudied regimes of physics. In June, Katie McCormick wrote for Quanta about the recent measurement of an excited state of the helium-4 nucleus. Enough Time The march of time is inexorable, but its rate of passage depends on the observer. For WIRED, KC Cole writes about the physics of time and the life lessons it has taught her. Humans' relationship with time has changed over the millennia. In 2020, Dan Falk, Eleanor Lutz and Olena Shmahalo created a graphic for Quanta tracing how our ideas about time evolved as science progressed. Follow Quanta Unsubscribe | About Quanta | My Bookmarks Privacy Policy | Terms | Contact Us   Copyright © 2023 Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of the Simons Foundation Simons Foundation 160 5th Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10010