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Room-Temperature Superconductor Discovery Meets With Resistance
A paper in Nature reports the discovery of a superconductor that operates at room temperatures and near-room pressures. The claim has divided the research community.
Black Holes Will Eventually Destroy All Quantum States, Researchers Argue
New calculations suggest that the event horizons around black holes will ‘decohere’ quantum possibilities — even those that are far away.
Strange Solar Gamma Rays Discovered at Even Higher Energies
There appear to be too many gamma rays coming from the sun. New higher-energy measurements reveal that this excess continues for a bit, then disappears — a cutoff that could help clarify what’s going on.
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works.
How Will the Universe End?
Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big Crunch, Bounce or vacuum decay? Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack about the five ways that scientists think the universe could come to an end.
The Joy of Asking About Infinity, Jellyfish and the End of the Universe
As The Joy of Why podcast returns for a second season, producer Polly Stryker and host Steven Strogatz invite listeners to join them and their brilliant new guests on another voyage of discovery.
What Lights the Universe’s Standard Candles?
Type Ia supernovas are astronomers’ best tools for measuring cosmic distances. In a first, researchers have managed to re-create one on a supercomputer, giving a boost to a leading hypothesis for how they form.
How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities
Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.
Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars
Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.