Google and startup Quantinuum performed breakthrough experiments in quantum computing. Conflicting views of the results’ significance…
Author: Sophia Chen
This Is the Quietest Sound in the Universe
Chill materials to extreme temperatures, and their vibrations show properties that could one day be exploited…
The Chemical Menace Inside Glaciers and Icebergs
Ice can trap pollutants and accelerate their breakdown, with troubling environmental consequences.
The Secret Lives of Neutron Stars
Astrophysicists are using gravitational waves and light to trace the genealogies of dead stars and reveal…
Antihelium Offers Hope in the Search for Dark Matter
An experiment at the Large Hadron Collider suggests there’s a chance of catching this elusive evidence…
‘Solar Twins’ Reveal the Consistency of the Universe
Physicists study starlight to find whether the fine structure constant, whose value makes our universe possible, really…
How to Use a Super-Intense Laser to Kick an Electron out of a Molecule
By firing pulses quintillionths of a second long, physicists study the fleeting motion of an electron…
A Reboot of the Maxwell’s Demon Thought Experiment—in Real Life
Physicists just reconstructed a 19th-century paradox that seems to violate the second law of thermodynamics (but really…
Forget Silicon. This Computer Is Made of Fabric
The jacket can raise and lower its own hood—without chips or batteries—and might one day help…
A Minimalist Approach to the Hunt for Dark Matter
In a new experiment, researchers looked for tiny flickers in the fundamental constants of nature.