FQxI

06/12/2026

Michael Montague won 3rd place in our essay competition, “How Quantum Is Life?”, which awarded $53,000 across anonymously submitted entries.

This is a clip from our interview with Michael. You can listen to his full interview, along with the podcast featuring more of the winners, below.

Podcast: https://qspace.fqxi.org/podcasts/129/2026.05.13
Full video chat with Michael: https://qspace.fqxi.org/videos/567/a-microbiologists-case-for-quantum-biology-%7C-michael-montague

06/09/2026

Microbiologist Michael Montague explains: the color of your iris is an aggregate effect. Around 10^17 pigment molecules adding up to a visible signature. Remove one and no one would notice.

What makes life quantum, in his telling, is the opposite. A single molecular event that cascades up to shape an entire cell, an entire organism, an entire life.

He gives the example of a cosmic ray hitting a strand of DNA, altering a nucleotide, which starts a chain that could end in a tumor.

He calls these "scale shifting effects." And he argues they're everywhere in living systems. That, he says, is the real answer to the question "how quantum is life."

Michael won 3rd place in our essay competition for his essay "Scale Shifting: Quantum Biology, Quantum Omics, & a Quantum Biotech Future."

Watch our full chat with Michael here: https://qspace.fqxi.org/videos/567/a-microbiologists-case-for-quantum-biology-%7C-michael-montague

06/05/2026

We Interviewed Harry Kumar, co-founder of Moth Quantum, at SXSW after hearing their talk on their new game 'Quantum Backrooms'.

05/29/2026

This game runs on a quantum computer! It’s a nod to the Backrooms internet aesthetic, popularised by online communities.
PLAY: https://mothquantum.com/quantumbackrooms

05/27/2026

Joshua Deutsch on why FQxI helps make space for fundamental questions that don’t fit the usual funding priorities.

05/21/2026

Nicola Jones spoke to arXiv's steward Greg Morrisett on why arXiv is becoming an independent non-profit after 35 years, and how it aims to tackle AI slop.

Full article on QSpace: https://qspace.fqxi.org/articles/285/arxiv-grows-up

05/18/2026

Gabriela Frajtag is twenty years old and recently graduated from Ilum School of Science in Brazil. She's also a winner of FQxI's "How Quantum is Life?" essay competition, a global, anonymously judged contest with a $53,000 prize pool, where she took home the Undergraduate Special Prize.

This is one segment from a longer episode featuring five prize winners from the competition.

Listen to the full podcast episode here: https://qspace.fqxi.org/podcasts/129/2026.05.13
Watch Gabriela's video chat here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN9UcRSmQHk&feature=youtu.be
Read Gabriela's essay here: https://qspace.fqxi.org/competitions/entry/2391

05/11/2026

Why did a US$3-million-winning result leave one physicist feeling like Peanut’s character Charlie Brown, scuppered from kicking the football at the last second by his friend Lucy?

The Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of science, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

05/06/2026

Four FQxI members have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining the 2026 class alongside the likes of Jodie Foster, Rita Moreno, and Sundar Pichai.

Congratulations to Raphael Bousso, Hiranya Peiris, Doris Tsao, and James Owen Weatherall.

Read more:

The Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of science, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

05/02/2026

Funding agencies, AI, and even scientists themselves favor tried-and-tested research avenues over exploring new ideas, to the detriment of progress.

Full piece by George Musser → https://qspace.fqxi.org/articles/284/risky-business-how-science-plays-things-too-safe

Featuring: Carl Bergstrom, C. Brandon Ogbunu and Dashun Wang