BIOPHYSICS

Bacteria Use Brainlike Bursts of Electricity to Communicate

By GABRIEL POPKIN

With electrical signals, cells can organize themselves into complex societies and negotiate with other colonies.

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ALSO IN BIOPHYSICS

Dividing Droplets Could Explain Life’s Origin

By NATALIE WOLCHOVER

Simple “chemically active” droplets might have evolved into the first living cells.

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ALSO IN BIOPHYSICS

New Life Found That Lives Off Electricity

By EMILY SINGER

Scientists have figured out how microbes can suck energy from rocks.

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QUANTIZED COLUMNS

To Solve the Biggest Mystery in Physics, Join Two Kinds of Law

By ROBBERT DIJKGRAAF

Reductionism breaks the world into elementary building blocks. Emergence finds the simple laws that arise out of complexity. These two complementary ways of viewing the universe come together in modern theories of quantum gravity.

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Entanglement Made Simple

By FRANK WILCZEK

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ABSTRACTIONS BLOG

The Math That Promises to Make the World Brighter

By KEVIN HARTNETT

The color of LED lights is controlled by a clumsy process. A new mathematical discovery may make it easier for us to get the hues we want.

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