Behaviors are sometimes described as being "hardwired," but the work of the celebrated neuroscientist Eve Marder of Brandeis University has explored a crucial difference between neural circuits and engineered ones: Neurons need to be resilient in the face of their own ongoing biomolecular transformation. In this episode, host Steven Strogatz talks with Marder about "multiple solutions" as a key feature of life, the similarities between a crab's stomach and our shoulders, and the secret to a satisfying career in science. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/eve-marder-on-the-crucial-resilience-of-neurons-20210517/.

The quantum physicist Charlie Marcus - a principal researcher at Microsoft Quantum Research and a professor at the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen - is engaged in one of the most ambitious quests in modern technology: the creation of a true quantum computer. In this episode, Marcus talks with host Steven Strogatz about why facts are never complicated, what working in a music store taught him about doing science, and the parallels between the use of knots in early Mesoamerican culture and his quantum computing work today. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/charlie-marcus-knows-that-quantum-facts-arent-complicated-20210510/.

Amie Wilkinson of the University of Chicago works in the rarefied area of mathematics called pure dynamics, studying how complex systems transform under the influence of simple rules. In this episode, she speaks with her fellow dynamicist, host Steven Strogatz, about the challenges of finding a place in mathematics as a woman, why groups can be understood as collections of moves, and what the recipe for puff pastry illustrates about chaos. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/amie-wilkinson-sees-the-dynamic-chaos-in-puff-pastry-20210503/.

Anesthetics transformed surgical medicine, but even a century and a half after their introduction, much of the science behind them is still not well understood, especially by the public. In this episode, the noted physician-scientist Emery Brown of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology talks with host Steven Strogatz about how anesthesia differs from sleep, what anesthesiologists should tell patients before surgery, and why recordings of brain waves should be collected from patients much more routinely. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/emery-brown-and-the-truth-about-anesthesia-20210426/.

Melanie Mitchell, a professor of complexity at the Santa Fe Institute and a professor of computer science at Portland State University, acknowledges the powerful accomplishments of "black box" deep learning neural networks. But she also thinks that artificial intelligence research would benefit most from getting back to its roots and exchanging more ideas with research into cognition in living brains. This week, she speaks with host Steven Strogatz about the challenges of building a general intelligence, why we should think about the road rage of self-driving cars, and why AIs might need good parents. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/melanie-mitchell-takes-ai-research-back-to-its-roots-20210419/.

The term "mathematical biology" might have been considered an oxymoron more than a few decades ago: How could mathematics enrich the largely descriptive disciplines of biology? But Trachette Jackson of the University of Michigan has become a pioneer in this area, bringing deep mathematical insights to cancer therapeutics. In this episode, Jackson tells host Steve Strogatz how a tumor resembles a box of pencils, and how she came to appreciate the usefulness of mathematics for piercing biological mysteries. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/trachette-jackson-fights-cancer-with-math-20210412/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.

Can algorithms make society more equitable? Rediet Abebe, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that data-driven machine learning can help to optimize the results of social and economic strategies. In this week's episode, host Steven Strogatz speaks with Abebe about how her Ethiopian upbringing helps her see discrimination in the U.S. in a different light, and why her research interests and here concerns with poverty, inclusion and diversity are inseparable. This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/rediet-abebe-on-using-algorithms-for-social-justice-20210405/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.

Federico Ardila, born in Colombia and now a professor mathematics at San Francisco State University, is an expert in the field of combinatorics, the study of all the possible configurations of finite systems. This week, Ardila talks with host Steven Strogatz about the importance of feelings in mathematics, the music of collaboration, imagining higher dimensional spaces, and the art and science of exploring "the space of possibilities." This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/federico-ardila-on-math-music-and-the-space-of-possibilities-20210329/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.

Sharon Glotzer, a computational physicist and professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, uses statistical mechanics to probe how the properties of materials emerge from the dynamics of their countless constituent particles. This week, she speaks with host Steven Strogatz about how a broken oil pump changed her life, how entropy is all about choices, and how she is driven to find the simple rules that explain the universe's complexity. This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/sharon-glotzers-deep-curiosity-about-order-from-chaos-20210322/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.

Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is responsible for some of the greatest accomplishments in theoretical physics over the past hundred years, including an explanation for the strong nuclear force and key contributions to our understanding of quantum chromodynamics. This week, Wilczek talks with host Steven Strogatz about how he made those discoveries, what is still missing from the standard theory, and a possible explanation for dark matter. This episode was produced by Dana Bialek. Read more at https://www.quantamagazine.org/frank-wilczek-on-the-strong-force-quarks-and-dark-matter-20210315/. Production and original music by Story Mechanics.