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physics

Colorful opalized shell of a fossil ammonite.
geology

Life Helps Make Almost Half of Earth’s Minerals

By Joanna Thompson
July 1, 2022
Read Later

A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too.

Dendritic ice crystals grow from top to bottom across the frame of a video.
condensed matter physics

Controversy Continues Over Whether Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold

By Adam Mann
June 29, 2022
Read Later

Decades after a Tanzanian teenager initiated study of the “Mpemba effect,” the effort to confirm or refute it is leading physicists toward new theories about how substances relax to equilibrium.

An illustration that includes a triangular network overlaid by images of spinning particles.
explainers

The Spooky Quantum Phenomenon You’ve Never Heard Of

By Katie McCormick
June 22, 2022
Read Later

Quantum computers may derive their power from the “magical” way that properties of particles change depending on the context.

Illustration of a wheel made of motors connected by arms. The wheel is shown in different stretched and squashed configurations.
complex systems

Wheel Made of ‘Odd Matter’ Spontaneously Rolls Uphill

By Ben Brubaker
June 15, 2022
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Physicists have solved a key problem of robotic locomotion by revising the usual rules of interaction between simple component parts.

An array of images of protoplanetary disks with bright suns at the centers surrounded by rings, arcs, filaments and spirals.]
astronomy

Astronomers Reimagine the Making of the Planets

By Rebecca Boyle
June 9, 2022
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Observations of faraway planets have forced a near-total rewrite of the story of how our solar system came to be.

An illustration of a spherical universe sitting inside a machine hooked up to wires.
neural networks

How to Make the Universe Think for Us

By Charlie Wood
May 31, 2022
Read Later

Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.

A curly arrow being straightened out.
theoretical physics

Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law That Leads to Disorder

By Philip Ball
May 26, 2022
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The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information.

Illustration of a woman astronomer looking at a map that shows the James Webb Space Telescope capturing images of a distant planet.
The Joy of Why

Will the James Webb Space Telescope Reveal Another Earth?

By Steven Strogatz
May 18, 2022
Read Later

The space telescope is one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken. Marcia Rieke and Nikole Lewis, two of the scientists leading JWST investigations, talk to Steven Strogatz about how it may transform our understanding of the universe.

Illustration of a glass box illuminated inside by a red lightbulb. A ray of green light shoots out of the box.
quantum physics

Puzzling Quantum Scenario Appears Not to Conserve Energy

By Katie McCormick
May 16, 2022
Read Later

By resolving a paradox about light in a box, researchers hope to clarify the concept of energy in quantum theory.


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