All Stories by Emily Conover
- Space
A near-Earth asteroid offers clues to one dark matter theory
Data from the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu place a ceiling on the strength of a hypothetical fifth force that could explain dark matter’s origins.
- Tech
Tech companies want small nuclear reactors. Here’s how they’d work
To fuel AI’s insatiable energy appetite, tech companies are going big on small nuclear reactors.
- Physics
Radioactive beams give a real-time view of cancer treatment in mice
This first successful treatment of tumors with radioactive ion beams could one day lead to treating human patients’ tumors with millimeter precision.
- Artificial Intelligence
The discovery of tools key to machine learning wins the 2024 physics Nobel
John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton used tools from physics to develop data analysis methods that underlie machine learning.
- Physics
Thunderstorms churn up a ‘boiling pot’ of gamma rays
A thunderstorm seen in gamma-ray vision is a complex, frenetic lightshow when viewed from above the clouds.
- Particle Physics
Physicists just discovered the rarest particle decay ever
The “golden channel” decay of subatomic particles called kaons could break or confirm the standard model of particle physics.
- Quantum Physics
Why this physicist is bringing thermodynamics to the quantum age
Like a steampunk fantasy-world, which pairs high-tech with an old-timey setting, Nicole Yunger Halpern melds old and new science.
- Particle Physics
A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations
Cosmological data suggest unexpected masses for neutrinos, including the possibility of zero or negative mass.
- Particle Physics
The Large Hadron Collider exposes quarks’ quantum entanglement
Top quarks and antiquarks produced in the Large Hadron Collider are entangled, a study shows.
- Physics
How to spot tiny black holes that might pass through the solar system
Flybys of primordial black holes may occur once a decade. Tweaks to the orbits of planets and GPS satellites could give away their presence.
- Quantum Physics
A quantum computer corrected its own errors, improving its calculations
The corrected calculation had an error rate about a tenth of one done without quantum error correction.
- Cosmology
In an epic cosmology clash, rival scientists begin to find common ground
Different measurements of the cosmic expansion rate disagree. The James Webb telescope could determine whether that disagreement is real.
