Science Highlights
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-Sep-2025 10:11 ET (4-Sep-2025 14:11 GMT/UTC)
27-Mar-2025
New approach to materials synthesis—with quick validation by a robotic lab
DOE/US Department of Energy
To make inorganic materials such as catalysts, industry mixes precursor powders and fires them in an oven. This often produces a mix of compositions and structures. In this study, researchers developed a new way to select precursors to increase yield and quickly validated their results using a robotic lab. The new recipe selection process obtained higher purity for 32 of the 35 target materials.
- Journal
- Nature Synthesis
26-Mar-2025
New precise calculation of nuclear beta decays paves the way to uncover physics beyond the standard model
DOE/US Department of Energy
Through the weak nuclear force, one quark flavor can transmute into another. However, current data and theory indicate that the probabilities of quark flavor transmutation do not add up to 100%, as predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics. To understand whether this is due to physics beyond the Standard Model or underestimated uncertainties, nuclear theorists laid out a new framework needed to extract the up-down quark flavor mixing with a precision of a few parts in ten thousand from certain nuclear beta decays.
- Journal
- Physical Review C
21-Mar-2025
Can electricity flow without electrons?
DOE/US Department of Energy
Scientists have long held that electricity is carried by individual electrons with discrete charges moving in a metal, even in the case of electrons clumped into quasiparticles. However, “strange metals” fail to obey this paradigm. Researchers have observed a radical quantum blurring of electrons in strange metal into a featureless liquid, potentially pointing toward a new theory of electrical transport.
- Journal
- Science
19-Mar-2025
Testing the possible doubly magic nature of Tin-100, researchers study the electromagnetic properties of indium isotopes
DOE/US Department of Energy
Atomic nuclei with “magic numbers” of protons or neutrons in their nuclear shells are extremely stable. Nuclear physicists are especially interested in nuclei with doubly magic numbers—those that have full shells for both protons and neutrons. One example is the tin isotope Sn-100, which has 50 protons and 50 neutrons. To prepare for future work on Sn-100, researchers studied the properties of isotopes of indium as they approached 50 neutrons. This helps to demonstrate how adding single particles changes the properties of a nucleus.
- Journal
- Nature
17-Mar-2025
Unlocking the passcodes to manipulate natural bacterial communities
DOE/US Department of Energy
Bacteria commonly produce toxins that are lethal to themselves, but also produce the required antitoxins. These toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems may be useful in modifying bacteria for biotechnology applications, but the systems have unpredictable behavior. A new study of communities instead of individual species makes TA systems easier to understand and use.
- Journal
- Molecular Biology and Evolution
14-Mar-2025
Nuclear physicists create scalable quantum circuits to simulate fundamental physics
DOE/US Department of Energy
Simulations of equations from the Standard Model of particle physics are too difficult for classical supercomputers. In this research, scientists for the first time created scalable quantum circuits to prepare a simulation of the starting state for a particle accelerator collision to test aspects of strong interactions. The researchers first determined these circuits for small systems using classical computers, then scaled the quantum circuits to a large system on more than 100 qubits of IBM’s quantum computers.
- Journal
- PRX Quantum
12-Mar-2025
Heavy ligands unravel new chemistry for heavy elements
DOE/US Department of Energy
The transplutonium actinides are highly radioactive and rare, making them difficult to study. To examine their chemical properties, researchers typically use non-radioactive lanthanides as surrogates. In this study, scientists streamlined the synthesis of transplutonium actinide compounds, which allowed for more accurate direct comparisons of lanthanides and heavy actinide compounds, showing that transplutonium actinides have truly unique properties.
- Journal
- Chemical Communications