I just realized that two of the most interesting articles that I have read this year were both from the same source: Quanta Magazine.
The first article that really grabbed me was a story about entropy, self-organization, and a brilliant young woman named Sharon Glotzer. ‘Digital Alchemist’ Seeks Rules of Emergence
The most recent article was the story of a retired mathematician named Thomas Royen finding an elegant proof to a conjecture long believed true (but unproven). Discovering the proof was something he (and many others) had tried many times before, and something that he had always dreamed of. A Long-Sought Proof, Found and Almost Lost