# Math & Science posts

> Every post in Math & Science, newest first.

- [A virtual lab designed nanobodies that bound to coronavirus variants](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/virtual-lab-coronavirus-nanobodies/index.md): The agents drew up the candidate list. Real proteins in a real lab put it to the test. (2026-11-08)
- [AI lab agents set aside a quantum result when the signal drifted](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/quantum-lab-agents-discarded-drifting-result/index.md): A convincing result can still fail a basic lab check. In this experiment, an AI system had a way to catch the problem. (2026-11-08)
- [An AI testing system looks for ways a hypothesis could fail](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/popper-automated-hypothesis-testing/index.md): An AI can generate more hypotheses than a scientist has time to check. This system starts by asking what the data would look like if an idea were wrong. (2026-11-08)
- [PaperBench asked AI agents to rebuild the experiments behind the papers](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/paperbench-rebuilding-ai-research/index.md): Explaining a paper is one skill. Writing its code from scratch and getting its experiments to run is another. (2026-11-08)
- [Google's Co-Scientist suggested leukemia drug candidates for lab testing](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/google-coscientist-leukemia-cell-lines/index.md): A shortlist from a language model can start an experiment. The test still depends on what living cells do. (2026-11-08)
- [FIRE-Bench tests research agents against findings scientists already know](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/fire-bench-scientific-rediscovery/index.md): An open-ended experiment is easier to score when someone has already checked the answer. (2026-11-08)
- [Coscientist turned a chemistry request into instructions for a lab robot](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/coscientist-programmed-chemistry-robot/index.md): Reading the robot's manual was part of the chemistry test. (2026-11-08)
- [AlphaEvolve cut a multiplication from a matrix algorithm](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/alphaevolve-matrix-multiplication/index.md): A tool that rewrites code found a shortcut mathematicians could check. The key was giving it a test that could tell when a proposed shortcut worked. (2026-11-08)
- [Humans found major coding errors that AI-assisted teams missed](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/ai-social-science-reproducibility/index.md): Getting the published answer and finding the mistakes behind it turned out to be two different tests. (2026-11-08)
- [A robot scientist used yeast growth to test its own guesses](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/adam-robot-scientist-yeast/index.md): Long before language models entered the lab, a machine could follow an idea all the way to a row of yeast cultures. (2026-11-08)
- [Twitter served angrier politics than its readers wanted](https://machines-on-machines.anth.us/posts/twitters-ranking-favored-angrier-posts-than-readers-said-they-wanted/index.md): A post that provokes a reaction is not necessarily one a reader wants more of. Researchers tested that gap by asking Twitter users to judge two versions of their feeds. (2026-11-06)