A group of physicists are questioning our understanding of how quarks – a type of elementary particle – arrange themselves under extreme conditions. And their quest is revealing that elements beyond the edge of the periodic table might be fair weirder than we thought. Deep in the depths of the periodic table there are monsters

One of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics could be explained by an equally weird idea – that causation can run backwards in time as well as forwards. What Einstein called “spooky” action at a distance could theoretically be evidence of retrocausality, which is the particle equivalent of you getting a stomach ache today thanks

The universe that Stephen Hawking spent a lifetime studying now knows his voice. Following Hawking’s death in March, the renowned British physicist, who had battled a debilitating degenerative motor neuron disease for decades, was remembered at a memorial service Friday at Westminster Abbey.  His ashes were buried between Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton and later covered with a gravestone — etched with an equation he used to

Few areas of science are as mind-bending as quantum physics – from Stephen Hawking’s black holes to the ‘spooky action’ that challenges our understanding of reality, there’s a lot to make us amazed. But because quantum anything can be tricky to understand, people also use it to explain phenomena that turn out to have far

Quantum technology promises big things for digital security and computing power, but the very thing it relies upon – quantum entanglement – has so far proven too fickle to reliably control. A new method for entangling particles is set to change that, providing the all-important quantum states when we want it, for as long as

As researchers around the globe race to create the next element on the periodic table – an atom that contains 119 protons – one scientist from Michigan State University is looking into where the table might end. While there’s no conclusive answer, it seems we still have a lot left to discover. According to nuclear

We learn about some awesome science in high school – like Einstein’s theory of relativity, the Periodic table, and DNA replication. The knowledge we pick up there sets the foundations for all the other amazing things we go on to study. But science definitely doesn’t end at high school, and it’s once you take your

The Leaning Tower of Pisa and its 5.5 degree lean has vexed engineers for centuries. Partially constructed on unexpectedly soft soil, the ancient bell tower began to lean before it was even finished, a historical goof that went on to become one of the world’s historical oddities – and made the tower a UNESCO World

Physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider have made a major new detection of the famous Higgs boson, this time catching details on a rare interaction with one of the heaviest fundamental particles known to physics – the top quark. The brief mingling of these incredibly rare encounters has provided physicists with important information on the nature of

Using the whole Solar System as a lab, and our most advanced time-keeping instruments for equipment, scientists have helped to verify the ‘Einstein elevator’ hypothesis – one of the central components of his general theory of relativity. The theory deals with the basics of mass, gravity, space, and time – so proving as best as

A neutrino detector has just made an incredible detection: far more of the mysterious particles than they expected. And the best explanation for this mysterious abundance is the existence of a hypothetical type of neutrino, called the “sterile” neutrino. The finding, made at Fermilab’s MiniBooNE, replicates a result from decades ago. Back in the 90s,

The world’s biggest diamond company, De Beers, recently announced it would start selling synthetic diamond gemstones for the first time in its 130-year history. Artificial diamonds have been manufactured since the 1950s but De Beers has long resisted moving into the synthetic market. The company now believes that technology is efficient enough to produce large

Eighteen-year-old student Ryan Chester won US$400,000 back in 2015 for this video explaining Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, as part of the inaugural Breakthrough Junior Challenge – an international competition that aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and science communicators. And it’s not hard to see why. If you heard the words, “Einstein’s

Not that you could tell by looking at it, but the glass of water sitting on your desk contains two different kinds of water molecule rotating in subtly different ways. A recent experiment managed to separate them, discovering one is much better at reacting than the other. We don’t expect this ‘better’ water to become

A rare earth element that doesn’t get much mention could become the key to upgrading atomic clocks to become even more accurate. This could help us explore space and track satellites, and even keep the world’s time zones in sync. Atomic clocks use the oscillations of atoms under laser fire as a measurement of time, in