Researchers have caused a material’s superconductivity to permeate into a nearby normal metal via a single molecule. The effect could allow the creation of Majorana quasiparticles, which many research teams are exploring as future qubits for quantum computers. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

One route to faster spacecraft involves giving them light sails—structures that use laser-radiation pressure to propel them to high speeds. Now researchers have demonstrated a nm-thick photonic-crystal material that could be used as the basis for the sails. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Each year, over 10 million people worldwide will receive a dementia diagnosis. Now researchers in Paris have developed a tool that could allow for detection of such brain disorders before symptoms set in. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Much has been discussed about students using chatbots to help write assignments. But physics educators believe that more positive learning outcomes could be achieved by using these powerful language models to improve the assessment of students’ work. physics.aps.org/articles/v18... ⚛️ 🧪

Researchers thought the rules on how swarming locusts move was all wrapped up. Turns out they were wrong. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

An update on the microsoft-majorana story. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

The @esa.int Euclid mission has today released its first survey data, which include images of 26 million galaxies from three deep-field surveys. ⚛️ 🧪 🔭☄️ physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

NASA is facing enormous cuts, half of its science budget, under DOGE. The impacts on the agency could be devastating, possibly including the cancellation of entire missions such as Hubble, Perseverance, and Voyager. Story by me in New Scientist (free to read) www.newscientist.com/article/2472...

Altermagnets are arguably the hottest objects in magnetism right now. Now 3 independent groups have proposed methods for electrically tuning the properties of altermagnets. The findings could allow the use of altermagnets in next-gen spintronics devices. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Republished from @physicsworld.bsky.social. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

“Some students are internalizing the recognition they get from peers very, very differently, and so any kind of interventions and studies I think we can dig into will likely help all students.” ⚛️ 🧪 #WomenInSTEM physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

The s8 tension is not going away. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Researchers have demonstrated a way to make large-scale chiral films from three different achiral inorganic materials. (Previously they'd done it mostly with organic materials). ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Just when you think everything about ice must be known. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Great piece by Elisa Todarello on using the JWST observatory @jwstobserver.bsky.social to detect photons that might be produced by axions, hypothetical particles that could make up the Universe's missing matter. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

“We see that highly energetic ions can have a significant impact on the properties of edge-localized modes [of Tokamak plasmas]...That suggests that if we want to develop proper mitigation strategies, we need to factor in controlling these energetic ions.” ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

⚛️ 🧪

The big physics news of the day, in case you missed it. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

"...quantum mechanics wasn’t created all at once. It took several decades and was a messy, confused process, during most of which the true nature of this revolution was obscure." ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Its #IYQ25 launch week, so here is another quantum milestone for your delectation. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

A story that will make you hungry. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Grab a cup of coffee and learn about the experiments that convinced skeptics that light can behave like a stream of particles. #IYQ25 ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Your daily dose of quantum physics for #IYQ25 ⚛️ 🧪

I caught up with researchers in Korea about a new device that can vacuum up microplastics floating on the surface of a body of water. physics.aps.org/articles/v18/6 🧪⚛️

2025 is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology #IYQ25. To celebrate, @physicsmagazine.bsky.social is republishing archival stories on the history of quantum physics. The 1st recounts Robert Millikan’s measurement of Planck’s constant. ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

“There was a belief that all fundamental particles must be fermions or bosons. Here we show there could be something beyond that.” (Caveat, its a highly idealized system, so experimental realization is not imminent and may not happen at all. Still cool though). ⚛️ 🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Stephen Hawking was born #OTD in 1942. He developed theorems with Penrose that determine when general relativity produces singularities, established classical laws of black hole mechanics, and hypothesized that quantum effects cause black holes to radiate. 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭 Image: Santi Visalli/Getty

ICYMI over the holiday period, here's a thread of articles summarizing some of the most interesting developments in various areas of physics in 2024, compiled by my @physicsworld.bsky.social colleagues and myself. (1/n) 🧵🧪⚛️

It's been a hot minute since I last posted here. Welcome to all the new people! My reason for posting is that I have a new story out 👇 But also--who is new on here who I should be following? Drop a comment below. physics.aps.org/articles/v18/3

"The biggest obstacle in making a green battery isn’t technological. It's changing the mindsets of companies and consumers, who largely treat batteries as disposable commodities that can be thrown in the dustbin." --Shirley Meng. #WomenInSTEM 🧪 ⚛️🌏 physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

Bring on multimessenger tau-neutrino triggered observations. Scientists have found seven astrophysical tau neutrinos—particles that are notoriously difficult to detect—in an analysis of data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica. 🧪 ⚛️ physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

Rochester’s inquiries “should be ‘Exhibit A’ about how not to run one of these things,” says Peter Armitage, a condensed-matter experimentalist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Latest update on the Dias story and a damning one. 🧪⚛️

I am meant to be at #TESS24 in Dallas right now, in the middle of watching the solar #eclipse. I am however at home with COVID. Sad to miss the experience and the conference. Anyone who is there, please share photos. 🧪 ⚛️ #scicomm

It's the year 2024 and West Virginia just passed a law that will allow the teaching of religious alternatives to science (meaning creationism) in public schools. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-... by Amanda Townley of the National Center for Science Education in Scientific American

Who knew cerium was so interesting? A widening gap between the cerium-140 abundance predicted by theories and that measured in observations of certain stars indicates a potential need for updated models of element formation. 🧪⚛️ physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the release of the first-ever image of a black hole (M87*). The team that produced the image recently released a second image of that same black hole. The collaboration now expects to issue increasingly frequent updates. ⚛️🔭 🛰️🧪 physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

A @physicsmagazine.bsky.social editor has been seen in the wild (@katrwright.bsky.social visiting Princeton Plasma Physical Laboratory for the opening of the Quantum Diamond Lab). Credit: Michael Livingston, PPPL. ⚛️

What do you think it was coming from? A truck. As in, a hyperspeed alien truck? No, it was an ordinary truck, like a normal truck driving past a seismometer... all they did was find a truck. No holding back on the punches here.🧪 ⚛️

A rare lab visit for me. I attended the opening of Princeton Plasma Physics's new Quantum Diamond Lab, where researchers will grow diamonds for quantum applications. I also toured the magnetic confinement fusion reactor. Reactor smaller than I expected, equipment need to operate it, much bigger. 🧪⚛️

For those following this story, a wonderfully reported story here from Dan Garisto that explains exactly what was going on in Ranga Dias's lab and how these two papers came to be. Mindboggling. 🧪⚛️ #scicomm www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A lot of writers got excited when it looked like early findings from JWST might have "broken" cosmology. (Who doesn't like a good paradigm-smashing?) The reality, as usual, turns out to be more subtle and complex. Great summary by @katrwright.bsky.social: physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

My first book review and a first story for @physicsworld.bsky.social. I could get into writing these reviews, its fun to be able to put my opinion in for a change. #scicomm 🧪 ⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/an-ambitio...

While undergraduate physics students that identify as neurodivergent report little outright discrimination or violence, they do say that structural ableism has negatively impacted their time as students. #scicomm 🧪⚛️ physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

🧪 ⚛️#MathSky

“Discovery always had to be dragged to do the revisits,” he said...Fortunately, these episodes did well in the ratings, increasing the network’s support for them over time, which is a great lesson for institutions and authors who drag their feet when examining criticisms of published papers. 🧪⚛️

Less than a year after its opening, the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams produced five never-before-seen isotopes (and some hints of others, see the paper), a success that researchers say highlights the discovery potential of the facility. 🧪 ⚛️ physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

Skype notification: your balance is set to expire because the account has been used for a year. That's because my Dad passed March 2023 & being the only person I knew without a smart phone, he was the only one I called that way. I'm about to get a many of these unwanted digital reminders, aren't I.

From cosmic scales to molecular ones. My latest: A technique that can determine the chirality of a molecule using that molecule’s own electrons could allow researchers to probe the dynamical behavior of chiral molecules on very short timescales. 🧪 ⚛️ physics.aps.org/articles/v17...

…what are you doing to help women and other historically underrepresented minorities in science other than reposting an inspirational graphic or blog post? If the answer is “literally nothing,” that’s perhaps not great!

"Climatologist Michael Mann wins defamation case: what it means for scientists" by Jeff Tollefson for Nature www.nature.com/articles/d41...