Bumblebees faced with a challenge know how to play ball. Buff-tailed bumblebees can figure out on their own how to use a ball as a ladder to nab sugar from an out-of-reach fake flower, researchers ...

Despite having tiny brains, bumblebees have demonstrated a remarkable ability to socially learn how to use tools, solve simple puzzles, and cooperate to achieve a goal. It seems they can also solve ...

“If you are a mathematician,” one of the world’s leading mathematicians recently wrote, “you may want to make sure you are sitting down before reading further.” And you’ll definitely need to sit down ...

Artificial intelligence is mastering the kinds of projects that have long helped to build the careers of young mathematicians. What does that mean for their future? Credit...Illustrations by Yoshi ...

Think about placing dots on a flat surface. You want as many pairs as possible to be separated by the same distance. For any amount of dots, what is the greatest possible number of pairs that can be ...

Problem solving is the mental process of analyzing a situation, learning what options are available, and then choosing the alternative that will result in the desired outcome or some other selected ...

For new discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines, follow NPR's ShortWave podcast . Over a century ago, the German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted what became a ...

Place any number of dots on a two-dimensional plane—say, a piece of paper—and measure the distance between each pair. If you rearrange the dots, how many pairs could be positioned exactly the same ...

In mid-May, OpenAI announced that an internal AI model had disproved the Erdős unit distance conjecture, a famous problem in discrete geometry that had stumped human mathematicians for the last 80 ...

Although landlocked, Los Llanos, Guatemala has become like an island. Located just 19 miles south of the country’s capital, the village has become virtually inaccessible thanks to deteriorating roads ...