NPR: Half a million dollars in scholarships for high school science geniuses were announced today in New York City at the Siemens Competition, one of the nation’s top science fairs. Seventeen top students competed with research on such topics as blinking stars, sick worms and amorous monkeys. But the winning project, on topology and abstract algebra, may be incomprehensible to anyone without a PhD in math.
The finding that the Saturnian moon may host layers of icy slush instead of a global ocean could change how planetary scientists think about other icy moons as well.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
January 29, 2026 12:52 PM
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