Physics

A subatomic particle has been found switching between matter and antimatter, in Large Hadron Collider data. It turns out an unfathomably tiny weight difference between two particles could have saved the universe from annihilation soon after it began.

Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating? The leading hypothesis is a repellent force that astrophysicists refer to as “dark energy." But how does it work? What does it mean for our future? And how sure are we that it even exists?

A technique is allowing researchers to measure endogenous lithium concentrations in the human brain for the very first time. Researchers found natural lithium levels in white matter were lower in suicidal subjects than healthy controls.

Antimatter is thought to have been mostly banished from our universe. But could it still be lurking out there? Astronomers have now identified signals from possible antimatter stars, and calculated how many of them might be hiding in our own galaxy.

Quantum technology is bursting with potential, but controlling atoms and molecules keeps proving tricky. In a breakthrough new study, physicists have successfully wrangled thousands of molecules into a single unified quantum state for the first time.

There’s invisible, undetectable stuff all around us, and we call it dark matter. There’s plenty of evidence that this stuff is very real, but what exactly is dark matter? How do we know it’s there? And how are scientists looking for it?

Dark matter makes up the majority of matter in the universe, but it’s strangely shy about making its presence known. Now physicists have designed a new test to search for signs of two candidate particles, using the quirky world of quantum technology.

The expansion of the universe is accelerating, and current models call the driving force dark energy. But perhaps this placeholder doesn’t exist – a new study has found that dark matter could produce the same effect if it had some form of magnetism.

Scientists at CERN have used lasers to cool down antimatter for the first time. The milestone could help unlock some of the secrets of this weird substance, including why it didn’t annihilate the universe soon after the Big Bang.

In a move that would please the fictional Star Trek engineer Mr. Scott, CERN is working on ways to store and transport antimatter. This isn't to power any starships secretly under construction, but as a way to better study antiprotons.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider probes the fringes of known physics, and now the facility has found particles not behaving as predicted. While it’s early days, the discovery hints at the existence of new particles or forces beyond the Standard Model.

How exactly supermassive black holes got so big remains a mystery, but a new study suggests they may have been born from supernovae of hypothetical, primordial stars far bigger than any around today. And we might soon be able to detect the leftovers.