If someone calls you a zero, you know it’s a diss without even having to think about it. You know right away that it means they think you’re nothing, smaller than any number. But humans aren’t the ...

About 2,500 years ago, Babylonian traders in Mesopotamia impressed two slanted wedges into clay tablets. The shapes represented a placeholder digit, squeezed between others, to distinguish numbers ...

The concept of zero may seem easy to you, but many human societies struggled with the idea. However, some of the world's smartest animals understand zero, and now that group includes the honey bee.

Honeybees understand that "nothing" can be "something" that has numerical meaning, showing that they have a primitive grasp of the concept of zero. That's according to a newly published study in ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Before there was nothing. Then, there was zero. So ubiquitous is the ...

Researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany have new evidence suggesting crows can contemplate the number zero. This ability means the birds join an “elite” group of creatures that can ...

On the road to algebra, children must learn a weird idea: that numbers can be smaller than zero (negative) and can be mixed with numbers greater than zero (positive) in an equation. Now researchers at ...