Figure 1: Moore and his colleagues measured the momentum kick imparted by a single gas molecule on an optically levitated silica nanoparticle (center) [2]. Thanks to the isolation offered by setups ...

Conduction electrons typically whiz through crystals in broad energy bands. However, some arrangements of atoms conceivably engender so much destructive interference among the electrons’ wave packets ...

The creation of modern quantum mechanics was a messy business in which many of the participants did not grasp the significance of their own discoveries. The wave nature of electrons is revealed in ...

The new JWST observatory is revealing far more bright galaxies in the early Universe than anyone predicted, and astrophysicists have more than one explanation for the puzzle. With the JWST observatory ...

Gravitational waves emitted by the merger of two black holes have been detected, setting the course for a new era of observational astrophysics. Figure 1: Numerical simulations of the gravitational ...

Figure 1: Will two objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum? Galileo was the first to test this equivalence principle, and he was followed by many others, including the Apollo astronauts. Now, the ...

Particle physicists are faced with a growing list of “anomalies”—experimental results that conflict with the standard model but fail to overturn it for lack of sufficient evidence. For their study of ...

A “Little Earth Experiment” inside a giant magnet sheds light on so-far-unexplained flow patterns in Earth’s interior. Sketch of outer-core flows derived from data from the Swarm mission (plotted ...

Scientists have pinpointed energy-efficient ways to cook al dente pasta and developed an infallible recipe for the perfect cacio e pepe sauce. The study by Toultchinski and Vilgis was inspired by a ...

Soap bubbles are transient objects, lasting at most a few minutes. Now, Aymeric Roux from University of Lille, France, and colleagues have created bubbles that maintain their structures for more than ...

Detecting neutrinos offers a new way to monitor the potential bomb materials inside a nuclear reactor, but the technology’s practicality remains uncertain. Neutrino detectors can continuously measure ...

Spectroscopic data suggest that thin films of a certain semiconducting material can exhibit altermagnetism, a new and fundamental form of magnetism. In 2022, theorists gave a name to a new class of ...