Three years after construction started, the most sensitive dark matter detector ever built has served up its first set of results – and it’s working just as its makers intended. The XENON1T machine, which we first reported on back in 2015, is our best shot yet at finding the notoriously elusive dark matter, which physicists

Researchers have created the strongest organic acid ever – and the team thinks it could revolutionise how we analyse proteins. The strongest acid on record is fluoroantimonic acid – it’s known as a superacid, meaning it has an acidity greater than completely pure sulphuric acid.   To give you an indication of how potent that is,

Researchers have constructed the world’s thinnest metallic nanowire, creating a stable string of the chemical element tellurium, that measures just one atom thick. The team behind the nanowire says the material is the most precisely configured ‘one-dimensional‘ system yet, and the technique used to produce the one-atom-thick atomic chain could lead to new advances in

Of the many ‘white whales’ that theoretical physicists are pursuing, the elusive magnetic monopole – a magnetic with only one pole – is one of the most confounding. Compared to the Higgs boson in terms of its potential impact on modern physics, the magnetic monopole has been on scientists’ minds for even longer. And now

The first direct detection of gravitational waves, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity, was reported by scientists in 2016. Armed with this “discovery of the century”, physicists around the world have been planning new and better detectors of gravitational waves.   Physicist Professor Chunnong Zhao and his recent PhD students Haixing

If you live in the US, you’re probably used to talking about weight in pounds and ounces (and having to convert things when Australians like us start talking in kilograms and grams), but here’s the thing – all your measurements are actually based on one very metric standard: the international kilogram. Veritasium host Derek Muller

Scientists have shown for the first time that changes in entropy – the measure of disorder in a system – can accurately predict when a mysterious quantum flip, known as a quantum phase transition, is about to happen. That’s a big deal, because not only do we know very little about these quantum phase transitions

Despite the NSA confirming the existence of Skynet, we all should be grateful that technology has not yet advanced to the stage where a liquid metal T-1000 terminator can shape-shift its way into your home and demand to see John Connor.  But scientists in China are making a solid effort make a less sinister version

For the first time ever, physicists have managed to directly detect a hydrogen bond within a single molecule – meaning we can now observe the smallest and most abundant element in the Universe in ways that scientists could only ever theorise about. The experiment also reveals just how sensitive our imaging devices have become –

It’s very early days, but two papers published today have detected hints of elusive dark matter within data collected at the International Space Station (ISS). Dark matter is the hypothetical substance that makes up 26.8 percent of the known Universe, and explains why our Universe holds together. For decades, scientists have struggled to detect it,

Physicists at CERN have reported an unexplained phenomenon in their giant ion collider device – for the first time ever, particles called ‘strange hadrons’ have been observed in rare proton collisions. These strange hadrons aren’t new – we find them in quark-gluon plasma, which is the incredibly hot and dense state of matter thought to

For centuries, people have puzzled over how our Universe began. But the heat just got turned way up on a debate that’s quietly been raging between cosmologists, with 33 of the world’s most famous physicists publishing a letter angrily defending one of the leading hypotheses we have for the origin of the Universe. The letter is in response

For the first time, scientists have subjected quantum entanglement to extreme levels of acceleration, and there’s nothing fragile about this “spooky action at a distance”– it’s way more robust than we thought. In recent experiments, entangled particles held firm even while being accelerated to 30g – 30 times Earth’s acceleration – and the results could

The world’s most accurate timekeepers have brought their powers to bear on the next leap in quantum research – moving from quantum control of single atoms to entire molecules. This step up in manipulating something more complex than atoms could offer new options in how we might store or convert quantum information, or even allow

Don’t let the fact that the objects known as Prince Rupert’s drops are made out of glass fool you – the pretty, tear-drop shaped baubles can withstand some pretty harsh punishment. Until you gently snap their tail, at least. New research has literally shed a light on the drops’ odd balance of incredible strength and

Quantum communication is a strange beast, but one of the weirdest proposed forms of it is called counterfactual communication – a type of quantum communication where no particles travel between two recipients. Theoretical physicists have long proposed that such a form of communication would be possible, but now, for the first time, researchers have been

If we want to find extra dimensions lurking within our Universe – something that string theory attempts to explain – gravitational waves could be our key to locating them, physicists suggest. This new hypothesis seeks to answer the long-standing mystery of why gravity appears to be weaker than the other fundamental forces in our Universe,

In case it wasn’t already awesome enough, physicists have found a new way to turn ‘wonder material’ graphene into a ridiculously powerful superconductor, capable of shuttling electricity with zero resistance. Graphene is already an overachiever – just one atom thick, it’s stronger than steel, harder than diamond, and incredibly flexible. And last year, it became

In one of his videos from earlier this year, YouTuber Joe Scott, host of “Answers With Joe,” takes on the glaring question of the speed of light. In a vacuum, the speed of light is 299,792 kilometres per second (186,000 miles/second). That seems really fast in terms of speed as we know it here on

Everyone likes a shortcut and a quick trip somewhere cool, which means that everyone loves a wormhole – at least in theory. In actuality, these space-time tunnels are probably not the alleged intergalactic shortcuts we’re looking for – and this isn’t a mind trick from Obi-Wan, either. But first, let’s talk about what wormholes are

For months now, there’s been speculation that researchers might have finally created time crystals – strange crystals that have an atomic structure that repeats not just in space, but in time, putting them in constant oscillation without energy.   Now it’s official – researchers have just reported in detail how to make and measure these

For months now, there’s been speculation that researchers might have finally created time crystals – strange crystals that have an atomic structure that repeats not just in space, but in time, putting them in constant oscillation without energy.   Now it’s official – researchers have just reported in detail how to make and measure these