All Stories by Andrew Grant
- Astronomy
Chile telescope array spots nearby Earth-sized planet
The discovery of GJ 1132b, the nearest Earth-sized planet known beyond the solar system, could herald the era of probing the atmospheres of nearby worlds for signs of life.
- Physics
Water droplets spontaneously bounce, sans trampoline
Initially stationary water droplets can bounce on an extremely water-repellent surface as if on a trampoline.
- Physics
Water droplets spontaneously bounce, sans trampoline
Initially stationary water droplets can bounce on an extremely water-repellent surface as if on a trampoline.
- Chemistry
Tricky element isolated from spent nuclear fuel
A new chemical technique makes it easier to extract the radioactive element americium from used nuclear fuel, potentially paving the way for better ways to reprocess and recycle nuclear waste.
- Particle Physics
Antiprotons match protons in response to strong nuclear force
The first study of how antiprotons interact with each other reveals yet again that particles of antimatter behave just like their ordinary matter counterparts.
- Physics
Acoustic tractor beam reels in objects like the Death Star
A platform tiled with ultrasound-emitting speakers can get small objects to hover, spin, move around and get reeled in as if pulled by a tractor beam.
- Quantum Physics
Light mimics hotel with limitless vacancies
By mimicking a mathematician’s method for creating vacancies in a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, physicists may have found a way of increasing the amount of data that can be carried via light.
- Quantum Physics
Confirmed: Quantum mechanics is weird
The first demonstration of a loophole-free Bell test validates the weirdness of quantum physics.
- Planetary Science
Five surprising discoveries about Pluto
Here are five key (though not necessarily new) findings in the paper that epitomize the surprising complexity of the Pluto system.
- Quantum Physics
Future quantum computing could exploit old technology
Silicon transistors have been modified and patched together to form logic gates that could perform calculations in future quantum computers.
- Quantum Physics
Entanglement: Gravity’s long-distance connection
The universe may be a vast quantum computer that safely encodes spacetime in an elaborate web of entanglement.
- Particle Physics
Neutrinos’ identity shift snares physics Nobel
Arthur McDonald and Takaaki Kajita shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery that neutrinos oscillate between different types, which demonstrates that the particles have mass.
