Crossing into a mirror world: Particles turn to wisps of fog, and the magnetic monopole paradox dissolves
In Goethe's ballad "Erlkönig," immortalized in Schubert's fevered 1815 setting, a dying boy riding through the night sees a spectral king beckoning from the darkness. His father c…
Tiny floating magnet detects ultrafaint magnetic fields at room temperature
Measuring faint magnetic fields is useful in a number of areas, including mapping brain activity, monitoring hearts and probing fundamental physics. Typically, picking up such wea…
Boron layers could set a superconductivity record, theoretical study predicts
Scientists in China predict that stacking two microscopic layers of boron could set a new record for superconductivity. Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with…
Photocatalytic method cleaves strong C–H bonds while preserving weaker C–Si bonds
α-Silyl alcohols are unique organosilicon compounds bearing a silyl group and a hydroxy group on the same carbon atom. Because these compounds serve as precursors to reactive spec…
Physicists watch a material's electrons assemble, and reassemble, into coexisting phases
A tall glass of ice water isn't just a thirst quencher; it's also an everyday example of coexisting phases. Water can exist simultaneously in both liquid and solid phases. As it t…
XENONnT detector narrows the hunt for dark matter
Using a detector filled with nearly 9 metric tons of liquid xenon, researchers have delivered some of the most sensitive dark matter results ever recorded. In the latest analysis …
An elegant modification doubles the range of low-noise 'white lasers' in a single fiber
Supercontinuum light sources—often called "white lasers" because they emit a broad, continuous rainbow of colors—are essential tools for everything from advanced medical imaging t…
How 'smart' hydrogel packaging tells you if your food is still fresh
The cuts of meat in a supermarket case can look perfectly fresh even as bacteria are already multiplying inside the package. Is there a way to know before you open it?
Researchers demonstrate first fully solution-processed solid-state polariton laser
Researchers have demonstrated a solid-state organic laser microcavity fabricated entirely by solution processing. The device operates in the strong light–matter coupling regime, w…
Never-before-seen woven structure that forms naturally inside a crystal discovered
For the first time, scientists have observed a three-dimensional woven structure forming naturally inside a crystal, revealing a previously unknown way in which matter can organiz…
Single-shot phase imaging technique can reconstruct transparent objects
A KAIST research team led by professor Mooseok Jang from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has developed a single-shot phase imaging technique that reconstructs a phase …
New quantum microscopy trick quadruples microscope resolution
Three years after a team of Caltech scientists showed that pairs of entangled photons could double the resolution of a light microscope, the same lab has figured out a way to doub…
Observing key material properties atom by atom for the first time
Many material properties depend on how electrons are arranged inside a material. Their distribution determines, for example, whether a material conducts electricity or displays ma…
X(2370) emerges as glueball-dominated particle in collider experiments
At the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil, the BESIII Collaboration report that, after 15 years of sustained research, it identified the dominant constituen…
Two-qubit entangling gate flags its own errors as detectable photon losses
Quantum errors are a normal part of quantum computing because fragile physical qubits (the tiny components storing data) can easily break down because of environmental noise, like…
Black silicon catalyst turns carbon dioxide into methane with sunlight
Carbon dioxide is often viewed as a major contributor to climate change, but it can also become a valuable raw material. If scientists can efficiently convert carbon dioxide into …
Your next handbag could start with mushrooms
The search for leather alternatives has led researchers somewhere unexpected: fungi. Although traditional leather is durable, producing it requires animal agriculture, which carri…
Sunlight-powered setup generates quantum entanglement
Today's quantum technologies rely on energy-intensive lasers, raising concerns that scaling them up could further increase energy demands. In new work, researchers have demonstrat…
Repurposing deep-Earth tools in the hunt for practical superconductors
If scientists could find a material that acts as a superconductor—that is, one that transmits energy with zero resistance—at normal pressures and relatively high temperatures, it …
Experimental drug turns cancer's favorite fuel against it
Cancer cells have a voracious appetite for sugar—using it to fuel their rapid growth. This is why many scientists have tried to develop drugs that block cancer cells' metabolism b…
Histone acetylation sites reshape DNA condensates, revealing a potential gene-control mechanism
A research team from AIST, the Institute of Science Tokyo, and Ritsumeikan University has demonstrated that the phase behavior of histone–DNA condensates depends on the site of hi…
Catalyst converts CO₂ into high-value industrial chemical at room temperature with record efficiency
A research team has developed a highly efficient catalyst that directly converts carbon dioxide—a major contributor to global warming—into high-value industrial 2-propanol. The re…
Accelerating the discovery of ceramic materials using cellulose nanofiber dispersions
Ceramic materials are used everywhere, from smartphones and computers to electric vehicles and renewable energy systems. These materials are used in a wide range of technologies b…
How hydrogen can be produced from bio-based formic acid in a continuous process
With annual production of around 1 million metric tons (1.1 million tons), formic acid is one of the most important basic chemicals and is used, among other things, as an additive…