A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, ...

Owing to the many different ways atoms can be arranged within the material, ice can exist in many more forms than what’s known as ice I, the type we’re all familiar with. Scientists have actually ...

Scientists have discovered a giant cosmic filament where galaxies spin in sync with the structure that holds them together.

For more than a century, gravity has been the stubborn outlier in physics, resisting every attempt to merge Einstein’s smooth ...

For years, the idea that reality might be a sophisticated computer program has drifted from late-night dorm debates into mainstream culture and serious philosophy. Now a new wave of theoretical work ...

New observations suggest that the relationship between light emitted by quasars has changed over cosmic time, hinting that ...

A new physics paper takes a step toward creating a long-sought "theory of everything" by uniting gravity with the quantum world. However, the new theory remains far from being proven observationally.

For three decades, researchers hunted in vain for new elementary particles that would have explained why nature looks the way it does. As physicists confront that failure, they’re reexamining a ...

Every year, the Nobel Prize reminds all of humanity to appreciate all that we’ve achieved scientifically and to be aware of how that newfound knowledge has impacted us as a species. To a scientist, it ...

Closely related subtypes of dopamine-releasing neurons may play entirely separate roles in processing sensory information, ...