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2 DAYS until Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony tickets go on sale (12 May 2026). The 36th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will take place in Zurich Switzerland, in early September.

Under a microscope, a bouquet of lollipop-like structures, each smaller than a grain of sand, waves gently in

A major obstacle may be standing in the way of the next generation of ultra-tiny computer chips. Researchers discovered that many promising 2D materials lose their advantages because an invisible atomic-scale gap forms when they are combined with insulating layers. That tiny gap weakens electronic performance and could prevent further miniaturization. The team says new “zipper materials” that lock together more tightly may offer a path forward.

Scientists have taken a major step toward ultra-secure quantum communication by demonstrating a remarkably stable quantum encryption system that worked across more than 120 kilometers of optical fiber. Using tiny semiconductor quantum dots that emit single particles of light on demand, the team achieved one of the highest secure key rates yet for this type of technology while maintaining continuous operation for over six hours without manual adjustments.

For the first time, scientists have measured the instantaneous mind-blowing power of jets blasting from a black hole.

Physicists may have just cracked open a hidden side of the quantum world. For decades, every known particle was thought to belong to one of two categories — bosons or fermions — but researchers have now shown that bizarre “in-between” particles called anyons could also exist in a one-dimensional system. Even more exciting, these strange particles may be adjustable, allowing scientists to tune their behavior in ways never before possible.

May 9, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend

3 DAYS until Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony tickets go on sale (12 May 2026). The 36th first annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony will take place in Zurich Switzerland, in early September.

Author(s): Susan CurtisAn intense electron beam is stopped more efficiently by a highly porous material than by a less porous material, suggesting new strategies for controlling beams. [Physics 19, 69] Published Fri May 08, 2026

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Black holes evaporate through Hawking radiation, meaning their days are numbered. But a new study finds they could enter a metastable stage where they look similar to white holes.

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment will study nature’s most mysterious particle a mile beneath South Dakota’s Black Hills, and potentially reveal the origins of matter

When complete in 2031, DUNE-LBNF will study the properties of neutrinos The post Officials hail ‘major milestone’ for US Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment appeared first on Physics World.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Scientists tested a live quantum internet between three locations across New York, inching closer to an unhackable internet.

4 DAYS until Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony tickets go on sale (12 May 2026).

Result described as a "huge relief" after previous measurements suggested a large discrepancy The post New W boson mass measurement agrees with Standard Model predictions appeared first on Physics World.

Adhara Pérez Sánchez, has an IQ of 162, surpassing Einstein and Hawking. Despite early challenges, she excels in STEM and advocates for neurodiversity

The Universe’s biggest black holes may not be born giants after all. Scientists analyzing gravitational-wave signals from dozens of black hole collisions found evidence that the heaviest black holes are likely “cosmic recyclers” — formed through repeated smashups inside incredibly crowded star clusters. These violent chain reactions appear to create a distinct class of rapidly spinning black holes that stand apart from ordinary ones formed by dying stars.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted something that shouldn’t exist—at least not so early in the universe. A massive galaxy, formed less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang, appears to have no rotation at all, a trait usually seen only in much older, evolved galaxies. This challenges current theories that young galaxies should still be spinning from their formation.

In a process analogous to how solids melt into liquids, the electrons in many different metals form crystal-like patterns that can deform and melt, opening new pathways for neuromorphic computing and superconductors, University of Michigan Engineering researchers have found.

On the International Space Station, a cube holding a diamond-based sensor revealed the potential for quantum magnetometers.

Jacob John of the UK Atomic Energy Authority is our podcast guest The post Near-oxymoronic requirements: the materials challenges of fusion energy appeared first on Physics World.

Introducing the NX1 AFM: a high-performance instrument that brings atomic resolution imaging to everyday labs, developed in collaboration with Prof. Giessibl.

For years, quantum computers have lived under a huge bubble of hype, promising to revolutionize numerous fields, from medicine and battery design to materials science and cybersecurity. But realizing their potential on any serious practical level will only be possible if large numbers of qubits (the basic units of information) can interact with each other with high precision and flexibility.

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Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute have shown that electrons in ultra-clean graphene can be steered with high precision while keeping their spin information intact, a key requirement for future low-power electronics and quantum devices.

Theories of quantum mechanics predict that some particles can exist in superpositions, which essentially means that they can be in more than one state at once. When a particle's state is measured, however, this superposition appears to "collapse" into a single outcome; a phenomenon often referred to as the "measurement problem."

A device made using a tiny bead floating in a beam of light can measure extremely small pressures and could help find a mysterious kind of neutrino

The most massive black holes in the universe detected by the ripples they make in spacetime were not born directly from collapsing stars, according to a new study. These cosmic giants instead build up through a series of repeated and extremely violent collision events in very densely populated star clusters, an international team of researchers argue.

5 DAYS until Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony tickets go on sale (12 May 2026).

Researchers from the University of Liverpool, Japan, and Argentina have captured atomic‑resolution images of an important copper-containing enzyme

New analyses by the IceCube observatory could help scientists understand where neutrinos form and what is producing them The post Gap in neutrino energy spectrum raises questions about cosmic environments appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and collaborators have developed a predictive design strategy for creating graphene-like molecules with multiple interacting spins and enhanced resilience to magnetic perturbations, opening new avenues for molecular-scale quantum information technologies and next-generation spintronics.

All lifeforms need to continuously adapt to temperature changes to survive. Now, Weill Cornell Medicine investigators studying a bacterial protein have identified a new mechanism of sensing cold temperatures. The finding points to the possibility that this same type of mechanism exists in other organisms, including humans, and may have relevance for disorders involving faulty temperature regulation.

The closest-ever detailed look at a key enzyme inside the virus that causes COVID-19 could lead to more effective treatment of the disease. Nucleotide analogs are a common type of antiviral medication that mimic the genetic material viruses use to replicate, essentially duping them into inserting faulty building blocks into new copies of the virus. Many nucleotide analogs don't work as well as expected against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, because coronaviruses carry an enzyme that identifies and removes genetic errors in its RNA—a "proofreader" called exoribonuclease (ExoN).

A recent study shows a new and potentially more energy-efficient way for information to be transmitted inside electronic systems, including computers and phones—without relying on electric currents or external magnetic fields.

New Curtin University-led research has used a radio telescope that spans the Earth to snap images that measure the immense power of jets from black holes, confirming scientists’ theories of how black holes help shape the structure of the Universe.

In a recent article, researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, emphasize the importance of multiscale modeling of catalysis in understanding and developing (electro)chemical processes. Modern computational tools enable the examination of catalytic reactions from the atomic level to the reactor scale, opening up new possibilities for predicting and designing complex chemical processes.

Supermassive black holes lurk at the centers of massive galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Puzzlingly, supermassive black holes more than a billion times the mass of the sun appear to exist just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was less than 5% of its current age. As interstellar gas spirals towards such black holes, it accelerates to extreme speeds, heats up, and emits intense radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, creating a "quasar."

An international team led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) has developed a new method that could significantly improve our understanding of the expansion of the universe and the nature of dark energy.

Quantum geometry describes quantum states in systems with changing system parameters, such as an electron spinning in a magnetic field whose direction is slowly changing. The state of the electron evolves, and this change is quantified by what is known as the quantum geometric distance.

In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is our best bet for "living off the land" for a future Martian base, but tracking down those resources is no easy task. As of now, we have two options—send a rover to a specific location to scout it, or monitor it from orbit. Since rovers are expensive, and there are an absolute ton of sites that we would eventually want to scout, doing so from orbit would seem a better option.

Researchers say that President Donald Trump’s resurrection of widely maligned fitness testing in schools is “half-baked” and unlikely to move the needle on youth physical activity alone

In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is our best bet for “living off the land” for a future Martian base, but tracking down those resources is no easy task. As of now, we have two options - send a rover to a specific location to scout it, or monitor it from orbit. Since rovers are expensive, and there are an absolute ton of sites that we would eventually want to scout, doing so from orbit would seem a better option. But monitoring for temperature, one of the most important orbital scans we can do, is notoriously blurry - based in part on the fact that most of the main instruments used to collect data on it are a few decades old. Now, a paper from researchers at Curtin University in Australia presented at the International Astronautical Congress meeting last September uses a fancy AI-like algorithm to improve that thermal resolution, and, as a

Quantum batteries can be charged remotely and could allow for far better energy density than conventional batteries used in devices today.

Prize-winning young writer Hasset Kifle, 17, explores how the world of super-competitive running is being transformed by so-called “super shoes” – and what cost this will have on the sport

If you have ever zipped up a hoodie inside a shopping mall in August, blame the humidity, not

Scientists have discovered the cause of a persistent glitch that continues to disrupt superconducting quantum computers, even when they have built-in defenses. For all their advanced hardware, superconducting quantum computers are vulnerable to errors caused by ionizing radiation from space or the environment. Radiation particles interfere with the chip substrate (the silicon base the processor is built on), which leads to the creation of rogue particles (quasiparticles) that disrupt the qubits, the basic units of quantum computers.

Work will soon begin to spin off the National Research Council of Canada's (NRC)’s Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre (CPFC) into a commercial entity. According to the Canadian government, The future spinoff will attract private sector capital to scale the CPFC’s operations, expand the Canadian supply chain of photonic manufacturing capabilities, and provide more effective and timely services to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises at the forefront of AI compute and quantum technologies. The Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre will be spun off as a commercial entity to scale operations and support Canadian businesses in an effort to catalyze the growth of Canada’s industrial capacity. Courtesy of the...

Researchers in the UC Santa Barbara Materials Department have uncovered the elusive quantum mechanism by which energetic electrons

An international team of researchers has measured the power of jets of particles blasted into space by black

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonBy combining quantum error correction with fault-tolerant techniques, researchers have improved how accurately a quantum computer estimates a molecule’s energy. [Physics 19, s52] Published Thu Apr 30, 2026

The new focus on manned missions to the moon and Mars presents countless pressing challenges, including keeping humans alive in hostile environments. What happens when an astronaut or space tourist has a cardiac emergency millions of miles from the nearest hospital?

A strange kind of matter that “ticks” forever without energy input has just taken a major leap toward real-world use. Known as a time crystal, this quantum system repeats its motion endlessly—like a clock that never winds down—and scientists have now managed to connect it to an external device for the first time. By linking the time crystal to a tiny mechanical oscillator, researchers showed they can actually control its behavior, opening the door to powerful new technologies.

Creating quantum entanglement inside a solid material is tricky in the lab – but crystals buried in the earth could be growing it naturally. Now one scientist says he has proof he’s found them

Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally "lonely" hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that's had astronomers puzzled since the system's discovery in 2020.

The mechanism that can cause a rapidly expanding plasma—the superhot state of matter harnessed in fusion energy systems—to spontaneously generate its own magnetic fields was identified through a new set of simulations. This improves our understanding of naturally occurring plasmas in our universe and advances the development of fusion systems based on an approach called direct-drive inertial fusion.

Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is the new CEO of Quantum Space, a company developing maneuverable spacecraft for use by the U.S. military and commercial operators.

A prototype ion engine that uses lithium metal vapor as a propellant has aced its first tests, achieving 25 times more power than the ion engine on the Psyche mission.

Stuart Orkin and Swee Lay Thein shared a Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for their research on genetic causes of sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia that set the stage for approved gene therapies. The treatments are not accessible to everyone, though

Kalli Zervas was at a California art school when she found she had a knack for math. She taught

Two quantum computers and two supercomputers teamed up to break the record on the biggest molecule yet to be simulated using quantum hardware

Author(s): Gianluigi CatelaniNewly identified correlated errors in superconducting qubits could limit the performance of error-correction schemes needed for a practical quantum computer. [Physics 19, 62] Published Mon May 04, 2026

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A National Taiwan University study shows that traffic particles can create sharply localized exposure hotspots near busy roads, intersections and elevated corridors. The findings suggest that targeted street-level planning may better protect children and other vulnerable groups than citywide averages alone.

To capture a crisp image of a hummingbird in flight, which can flap its wings up to 200 times per second, a photographer needs a camera with an extremely fast shutter speed. But what if your target is smaller than a single chromosome and can travel at velocities approaching lightspeed? Conventional cameras, no matter how advanced, are limited by the nature of light. You would need a special device and an innovative method to film such a tiny, speedy subject.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have directly analyzed the surface of a distant super-Earth, revealing a dark, airless, Mercury-like world.

Using various telescopes, an international team of astronomers has performed multi-wavelength observations of a recently identified gamma-ray burst source designated GRB 250416C. Results of the observational campaign, published April 23 on the v pre-print server, could help us better understand the nature of GRB 250416C and gamma-ray bursts in general.

Drug discovery still too often relies on expensive trial and error. Researchers from ICTER show there is another way—building molecules step by step and observing their behavior at atomic resolution. This approach could significantly speed up the development of new therapies while reducing side effects.

Symmetry is one of the most fundamental principles in nature. It describes the rules that make an object look unchanged after a rotation, reflection, or other transformations. In materials, symmetry governs how atoms and electrons are arranged, and how they move together. Crucially, symmetry can even prevent certain collective atomic motions (vibrations) from interacting at all: some are simply forbidden to talk to each other. But what if those symmetry restrictions are not as rigid as they seem?

Magnons are tiny waves in magnetization that travel through solid magnetic materials, much like the ripples that spread across a pond when a stone is thrown into it. Unlike photons, which travel through empty space or optical fibers, magnons propagate within a magnetic solid. Their wavelengths can be reduced to the nanometer range, meaning that magnonic circuits could, in principle, fit onto a chip no larger than those found in today's smartphones. Furthermore, as an excitation of a solid, a magnon naturally couples to numerous other fundamental quasi-particles—phonons, photons and others—making it an ideal building block for hybrid quantum systems and quantum metrology.

Quantum technology has promising potential to revolutionize how large and complex amounts of information are processed. While already in use primarily in laboratory and research settings globally, quantum technologies are in a transition phase for broader industry applications across many economic sectors.

José Ortiz rides Golden Tempo to Kentucky Derby victory, with prize money, payouts, and historic milestones drawing global attention

A decades-old cosmic mystery has finally been cracked: the strange X-rays coming from the bright star gamma-Cas are caused by a hidden stellar companion feeding off it. Using cutting-edge observations from the XRISM space mission, astronomers discovered that an unseen white dwarf star is siphoning material from gamma-Cas, heating it to extreme temperatures and producing powerful X-ray emissions. This breakthrough resolves a puzzle that has baffled scientists since the 1970s and sheds new light on how these unusual stellar pairs form and evolve.

We're focusing on space news this week, but we did cover the usual amount of local news down here in Earth's gravity well: A new Tokamak reactor regime sustained stable plasma fusion for one full minute. An anomaly in global sea level rise turns out to be due to deep ocean heating. And Chinese researchers report that they found microplastics in every part of both healthy and diseased human brains.

Researchers at Yale, Google, and the University of California-Santa Barbara have created a device that simulates the quantum

Light, as we usually conceive of it, is defined by the astonishing velocity at which it moves from