Why does cancer sometimes recur even after successful treatment, or why do some bacteria survive despite the use of powerful ...

A new CRISPR approach can control genes without cutting DNA, opening a safer path for treating genetic diseases. A newly ...

The All-Pairs Shortest Paths Problem, Seeking the Shortest Distance Between Every Node Pair in a Graph, is Efficiently Solved by Johnson's Algorithm for All Pairs of a Vertext, Bellman-Ford for ...

Determining the least expensive path for a new subway line underneath a metropolis like New York City is a colossal planning challenge—involving thousands of potential routes through hundreds of city ...

When Edsger W. Dijkstra published his algorithm in 1959, computer networks were barely a thing. The algorithm in question found the shortest path between any two nodes on a graph, with a variant ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle ...

If you want to solve a tricky problem, it often helps to get organized. You might, for example, break the problem into pieces and tackle the easiest pieces first. But this kind of sorting has a cost.

Officials acknowledge that Kenya has a doping problem, but many athletes who are seeking an edge also want a way out of poverty. Officials acknowledge that Kenya has a doping problem, but many ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For computer scientists, solving problems is a bit like mountaineering. First they must choose a problem to solve—akin to identifying a ...