Collaborate Disseminate
Of the four fundamental forces, gravity is the one we’re most familiar with in our everyday lives, but perhaps surprisingly, it’s the weakest and hardest to measure here on Earth. Now, physicists in Austria have made the smallest measurement of gravity… Continue reading Physicists measure the gravitational pull of a ladybug
Faster-than-light (FTL) travel is a staple of sci-fi, hand-waving away multi-millennia journeys between stars. Such a technology would of course be incredibly handy to us in the real world, and while these “warp drives” have been considered theoretical… Continue reading New theoretical warp drive design clears “negative energy” barrier
We’re all too familiar with the inexorable march of time, but why exactly it flows in one direction remains a mystery of physics. A few years ago Australian physicist Joan Vaccaro proposed a new quantum theory of time, and now a team is planning to tes… Continue reading Physicists to look for quantum time dilation inside nuclear reactor
Astronomers have detected a strange signal coming from a group of neutron stars that could be the fingerprints of a long-sought elementary particle – and maybe even dark matter. An unexplained excess of X-rays hints at axions, hypothetical “ghost” part… Continue reading Unexplained X-ray signals from neutron stars hint at “ghost” particles
The gravitational waves we’ve detected so far have been like tsunamis in the spacetime sea, but it’s believed that gentle ripples should also pervade the universe. Now, a 13-year survey of light from pulsars scattered across the galaxy may have reveale… Continue reading Astronomers may have detected background ripples in spacetime itself
By definition metals and insulators are very different – but now Princeton physicists have accidentally discovered an unexpected quantum behavior in an insulator that was thought to be unique to metals. The find suggests a brand new type of quantum par… Continue reading New quantum particle may have been accidentally discovered
Curing cancer is a noble goal and all, but sometimes scientists just want to see what happens when you give octopuses ecstasy. From medical marvels to wild speculations about time travel, aliens and the end of the universe, New Atlas revisits some of 2… Continue reading Talking mummies and time travel rules: Strangest science stories of 2020
Dark matter is thought to outnumber the regular stuff by a ratio of five to one, yet it remains frustratingly elusive. But there might be ways to potentially spot it, if you know where to look, and now astronomers have scanned neutron stars for telltal… Continue reading Neutron stars scanned for signals of dark matter turning into light
Dark matter is currently the most widely accepted hypothesis for explaining some of the weirdness we see in the cosmos – but it’s not the only possibility. Now, a team of astronomers has discovered evidence in over 150 galaxies for a long-standing alte… Continue reading Evidence of “modified gravity” strengthens dark matter alternative
Atomic clocks are the most precise timekeepers we have today, with the best ones keeping time to within one second in 15 billion years. But there’s always room for improvement, as researchers at MIT have now demonstrated with a new quantum-entangled at… Continue reading Quantum-entangled atomic clock keeps spookily accurate time