Killer whales are skilled assassins, hunting everything from herring to great white sharks. Now, for the first time, scientists witnessed a pod of killer whales bring down the world’s largest…
Author: ID
A new particle accelerator aims to unlock secrets of bizarre atomic nuclei
Inscribed on an Italian family’s 15th century coat of arms and decorating an ancient Japanese shrine, the Borromean rings are symbolically potent. Remove one ring from the trio of linked…
Doubt cast on theorized ‘sterile’ particles leaves a neutrino mystery unsolved
For decades, physicists have suspected an interloper. A reclusive, hypothetical subatomic particle might be creeping into studies of neutrinos, nearly massless particles with no electric charge. A new study casts…
How particle detectors capture matter’s hidden, beautiful reality
At every moment, subatomic particles stream in unfathomable numbers through your body. Each second, about 100 billion neutrinos from the sun pass through your thumbnail, and you’re bathed in a…
Physicists dream big with an idea for a particle collider on the moon
If you could peer into a particle physicist’s daydream, you might spy a vision of a giant lunar particle accelerator. Now, researchers have calculated what such an enormous, hypothetical machine…
In a first, neutrinos were caught interacting at the Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider’s claim to fame is its ability to unveil elusive subatomic particles. But there’s one class of particle that it had never directly detected, even though it…
Quantum physics requires imaginary numbers to explain reality
Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem…
Physicists have coaxed ultracold atoms into an elusive form of quantum matter
An elusive form of matter called a quantum spin liquid isn’t a liquid, and it doesn’t spin — but it sure is quantum. Predicted nearly 50 years ago, quantum spin…
Scientists finally detected a quantum effect that blocks atoms from scattering light
A cloud of ultracold atoms is like a motel with a neon “no vacancy” sign. If a guest at the motel wants to switch rooms, they’re out of luck. No…
Scientists are one step closer to error-correcting quantum computers
Mistakes happen — especially in quantum computers. The fragile quantum bits, or qubits, that make up the machines are notoriously error-prone, but now scientists have shown that they can fix…
