A fifty-year-old hypothesis predicting the existence of bodies dubbed Generic Objects of Dark Energy (GEODEs) is getting a second look in light of a proposed correction to assumptions we use to model the way our Universe expands. If this new version of a classic cosmological model is correct, some black holes could hide cores of pure

Protons probably aren’t quite as big as we’d once imagined, according to the results of a sensitive physics experiment that took eight years to complete. Scientists now say our earlier measurements of proton size were off by as much as 5 percent – which might not seem like such a huge correction, but to physicists

A team of researchers has just demonstrated quantum enhancement in an actual X-ray machine, achieving the desirable goal of eliminating background noise for precision detection. The relationships between photon pairs on quantum scales can be exploited to create sharper, higher-resolution images than classical optics. This emerging field is called quantum imaging, and it has some

Water is a weird molecule, and no matter how many strange things about it we discover, it seems like there are always more unexpected surprises waiting around the corner – even after centuries of researching it. Case in point: in a new study, scientists in the US have discovered that in the right circumstances, water

When two neutron stars collide, it’s not like we can just pop up there with a thermometer to measure the intense temperatures being generated at the heart of the collision. There are other observables that can help us calculate surface temperatures, but inside? That’s a little trickier. Add to that the fact that we’ve only

Scientists have found evidence of superconductivity happening at temperatures and energy levels way above its normal boundaries – a finding which could one day go on to help revolutionise the design and workings of our electronics. A superconductor material is one that can transfer electricity without resistance. In turn, this means the electricity travels through

It’s not like the one in your car, but a team of physicists at Trinity College Dublin have built what they claim is the world’s smallest engine. The engine is the size of a single calcium ion – about ten billion times smaller than an automobile engine. Rather than powering your next road trip, the

For quantum computing to become fully realised, we’re going to have to make a few huge scientific leaps along the way – including finding a superconductor that can act in the same way as silicon does in today’s computing. A team of researchers thinks that search might now be over. Introducing the compound uranium ditelluride

Carbon can be arranged in a number of configurations. When each of its atoms is bonded to three other carbon atoms, it’s relatively soft graphite. Add just one more bond and it becomes one of the hardest minerals known, diamond. Chuck 60 carbon atoms together in a soccerball shape and boom, buckyballs. But a ring

Researchers have created the thinnest unsupported gold sheets ever created in a lab, producing infinitesimal slivers of the precious metal that are only two atoms thick. These vanishingly thin gold sheets – approximately 1 million times thinner than a human fingernail – measure just 0.47 nanometres in thickness, representing a new breakthrough in the fabrication

It’s time to celebrate another first in the field of quantum physics: scientists have been able to ‘teleport’ a qutrit, or a piece of quantum information based on three states, opening up a whole host of new possibilities for quantum computing and communication. Up until now, quantum teleportation has only been managed with qubits, albeit

The Negev desert that sprawls across Israel is one of the driest places on Earth, but deep below its surface is a different story. Held in the sandstone deep underground is a reservoir of fossil water that lay undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of years. Researchers know this water is old, because it can’t have been

Imagine trying to film an event that was over and done within a mere 125 trillionths of a second. It’s something that molecular physicists have long been dreaming of, and at last it seems they’ve achieved their goal. Using precisely tuned pulses of laser light, an international team of scientists from four different institutions has

Scientists have just discovered something new about gold. When extreme crushing pressure is applied quickly, over mere nanoseconds, the element’s atomic structure changes, becoming more similar to metals harder than gold. It’s the first time this structural state has ever been observed in gold, suggesting properties that could help scientists refine their understanding of how

New images of the Majorana fermion have brought physicists a step closer to harnessing the mysterious objects for quantum computing. These strange objects – particles that acts as their own antiparticles – have a vast as-yet untapped potential to act as qubits, the quantum bits that are the basic units of information in a quantum

When it comes to our physical world, scientific research indicates that size really does matter. While “big” objects, anything from a grain of sand to a galaxy, abide by one set of rules – classical physics – tiny objects, such as atoms and particles, abide by an entirely different set, a discovery that gave birth

It’s easy to take time’s arrow for granted – but the gears of physics actually work just as smoothly in reverse. Maybe that time machine is possible after all? An experiment earlier this year shows just how much wiggle room we can expect when it comes to distinguishing the past from the future, at least

Physicists in the US have discovered a material that could qualify as the first known three-dimensional example of a quantum spin liquid – an exotic theoretical phase of matter. Quantum spin liquids were first predicted by scientists back in the 1970s. While researchers have studied them for decades, these phases largely remain a theoretical concept, although

We may not know what dark matter is, but one thing we do know: it doesn’t appear to have killed anyone by slamming into them – an event that would, at the very least, result in serious injury. So you can scratch that one off your list of things to worry about in this worrisome

In a major step forward for atomic-scale quantum computing, scientists have built the first two-qubit gate between atoms in silicon, allowing qubits to communicate with each other and perform operations faster than ever before. Since a two-qubit gate is the fundamental building block of a quantum computer, this has pretty amazing implications. “A lot of