Electric vehicles promise to help wean us off of fossil fuels, but they introduce a new problem: how to get enough of the lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can extract lithium only from sources with highly concentrated ions, like … Read more
Black holes about the size of a hydrogen atom could be careening through the solar system unnoticed. But their days of stealth may be numbered. Two teams of researchers propose methods to search for these tiny, hypothetical objects, which would have the mass of an asteroid. Because they would have formed in the universe’s infancy, … Read more
Picture Victorian London, but its skies are filled with airships. Steam-powered robots crowd the streets, mingling with people in top hats and petticoats. That type of retrofuturistic mash-up is the fantasy realm of steampunk, a genre of literature, film and other creative media. Theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern sees her specialty, the field of quantum … Read more
Either way you look at it, paper cutting is painful. Magazines, papers and books harbor a devious potential for small self-inflicted agonies. But other types of paper – such as thin paper or the thicker ones used for postcards – are less likely to offend. Scientists have now explained the physics behind why certain cards … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Most “radiant cooling” designs involve roofs designed to receive and then emit the sun’s energy in infrared wavelengths that … Read more
Scientists have just narrowed down the possible hiding places for dark matter particles. The LUX-ZEPLIN, or LZ, experiment has searched for and ruled out the existence of dark matter particles with a wide range of properties, researchers report Aug. 26 at two conferences. Dark matter is a substance whose influence can be seen on the … Read more
The texture of mayonnaise inspires love and hate. Either way, it’s perfect for physics experiments. The classic seasoning is useful for understanding how materials behave, not only when spread on sandwiches or spread on potato salads, but also when used in nuclear fusion experiments. Mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and … Read more
Scientific watchmakers have created a prototype of a nuclear clock, hinting at future possibilities for using atomic nuclei to make precise time measurements and make new tests of fundamental theories of physics. While the definition of “watch” is scientifically nebulous, the prototype has yet to be used to measure time. So it should technically be … Read more
For the first time, a quantum computer has improved its results by continuously correcting its own miscalculations with a technique called quantum error correction. Scientists have long known that quantum computers need error correction to fulfill their potential to solve problems that hinder standard, “classic” computers (SN: 22.6.20). Quantum computers compute with quantum bits, or … Read more
Quantum entanglement has made its way to the top. Scientists have measured the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement in top quarks, the heaviest fundamental subatomic particles known. It is the first detection of entanglement between pairs of quarks – a class of subatomic particles that make up larger particles, including protons and neutrons. Particles that … Read more