When groups get together to brainstorm, they actually come up with fewer ideas than the individuals in that group would have come up with on their own. That’s why it’s important to think about group ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 2003, a German graduate student named Britta Späth encountered the McKay conjecture, one of the biggest open problems in the ...

Anyone who has dealt with ants in the kitchen knows that ants are highly social creatures; it's rare to see one alone. Humans are social creatures too, even if some of us enjoy solitude. Ants and ...