Copper and lutetium metal ions chaperone this molecular strand into a three-twist knot. Credit: Credit: Stuart Jantzen, Biocinematics It’s annoyingly easy to tangle your headphones into a mess of ...

Knots are not just for shoelaces and sailing lines. In the last decade, physicists have shown that swirling liquids can ...

SMALL PRINT:MOST OF us curse knots – in our shoe laces, in long tresses, in our ties and in streams of traffic. But some people celebrate them, studying them with delight and disecting them with a ...

It’s the bane of any avid music listeners; headphones seemingly always become tangled when they’re stored in a pocket, bag or elsewhere. But the mystery of headphones tangling might finally be solved ...

Tangled telephone cords and electronic cables that come to resemble bird nests can frazzle even the most stoic person. Now researchers have unraveled the mystery behind how such knots form. Two ...

A Q&A with a veteran knot theorist discusses the strange origins of the discipline, as well as its modern-day applications. This field of mathematics, rich in aesthetic beauty and intellectual ...