Physics

Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb.

Nikta Fakhri is adapting and extending concepts from physics to describe how tiny biological components give rise to living organisms.

Random circuit sampling, a popular technique for showing the power of quantum computers, doesn’t scale up if errors go unchecked.

A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

In a year filled with sweet new observations in astronomy and tantalizing breakthroughs in condensed matter physics, the brand-new space telescope takes the cake.

The buckminsterfullerene revolution never came, but some researchers are eagerly exploring the properties of newfound carbon crystals known as fullertubes.

By using fluids to model inaccessible realms of the cosmos, Silke Weinfurtner is “looking for a deeper truth beyond one system.” But what can such experiments teach us?

Two new studies suggest that certain tetrahedral arrangements of galaxies outnumber their mirror images, potentially reflecting details of the universe’s birth. But confirmation is needed.

Maintenance of the software that’s used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.