Beauty in Physics, Synthetic Genomes, and More: Week in Review

ByAllison EckSunday, June 5, 2016 NOVA NextNOVA Next

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Physicists often revel in the elegance of their equations, but some think it’s gone too far. NOVA Next contributor Sarah Scoles

reports the story.

In other news:

What happens when you’re no longer the girl next door from “The Wonder Years” ? Math helped Danica McKellar discover that she’s so much more than the child actress who played Winnie Cooper.
The universe is
Related
Contemplating Infinity
Imagining Other Dimensions
What Makes Diamonds Sparkle?
expanding faster than expected , and we don’t know why.
Schrödinger’s cat—entangled and sliced in half—could help build better quantum computers .
Gravitational waves could finally help us prove string theory .

Elon Musk thinks we’re all characters in an advanced civilization’s video game . [Vox]
Scientists have announced HGP-Write, a project to synthesize the human genome . [The New York Times]
The F.D.A. is proposing guidelines for salt added to food. [The New York Times]
Scientists have discovered a gigantic sea sponge in Hawaii . [The Guardian]

Image credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team