Sea urchin skeletons may owe some of their strength to a common geometric design. Components of the skeletons of common sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) follow a similar pattern to that…
Category: Physics
Protons contain intrinsic charm quarks, a new study suggests
Protons may be intrinsically charming. The subatomic particles are a mash-up of three lighter particles called quarks: two of the type known as up quarks and one down quark. But…
Physicists spotted rare W boson trios at the Large Hadron Collider
The letters “www” are typically followed by a “dot” — but not in this experiment. Around 270 WWW events, trios of particles called W bosons, appeared in an experiment at…
The Windchime experiment could use gravity to hunt for dark matter ‘wind’
The secret to directly detecting dark matter might be blowin’ in the wind. The mysterious substance continues to elude scientists even though it outweighs visible matter in the universe by…
This stick-on ultrasound patch could let you watch your own heart beat
Picture a smartwatch that doesn’t just show your heart rate, but a real-time image of your heart as it beats in your chest. Researchers may have taken the first step…
Quantum entanglement makes quantum communication even more secure
Stealthy communication just got more secure, thanks to quantum entanglement. Quantum physics provides a way to share secret information that’s mathematically proven to be safe from the prying eyes of…
A new dark matter experiment quashed earlier hints of new particles
Potential hints of weird new particles in a dark matter detector have evaporated with new data. Following up on a beguiling result from its predecessor experiment, the XENONnT experiment found…
A supersensitive dark matter search found no signs of the substance — yet
The next generation of dark matter detectors has arrived. A massive new effort to detect the elusive substance has reported its first results. Following a time-honored tradition of dark matter…
Aliens could send quantum messages to Earth, calculations suggest
An intelligent alien civilization could beam quantum messages to Earth. Particles of light, or photons, could be transmitted over vast, interstellar distances without losing their quantum nature, researchers report June…
How physicists are probing the Higgs boson 10 years after its discovery
Javier Duarte kicked off his scientific career by witnessing the biggest particle physics event in decades. On July 4, 2012, scientists at the laboratory CERN near Geneva announced the discovery…
