Time travel may in fact be possible, but it wouldn't work like in Back to the Future. (For one thing, you don't have worry about your parents failing to create you—you already exist.) 02.02.2010
Four ions can become quantum entangled. Why not a human? 01.26.2010
Traffic jams are mathematically like explosions. Drivers armed with info can defuse the bomb. 01.26.2010
How do different-sized spheres fit into a large container? 01.25.2010
Data-heavy phenomena like gene regulation may be too complicated for human scientists to pin down. 01.25.2010
To get really high-energy X-rays, you need some really powerful magnets. 01.06.2010
By analyzing how waves change speed and direction, researchers were able to locate the boundary between rigid tectonic plates and the hot, pliable asthenosphere. 12.30.2009
The National Ignition Facility starts warming up for its main act: nuclear fusion research. 12.22.2009
No atoms could escape the void within the cloud: “It’s like trying to swim upstream in a river whose current is faster than you.” 12.22.2009
The attraction and repulsion effects make up what is known as the “optical force,” a newly observed phenomenon that works on microscopic scales. 12.21.2009
The CERN theoretical physicist looks ahead to what will happen when the LHC gets cranked up to full power. 12.19.2009
The quirks in Einstein's thinging parts may have reflected his “preference for thinking in sensory impressions, including visual images rather than words.” 12.17.2009
Hint: There are a lot fewer of them now than there were a few years ago. 11.18.2009
New research suggests that math has evolved its way right into our neurons—and monkeys', too. 11.17.2009
Physicist Lisa Randall describes the turbulent first year after the collider's premature celebration. 11.12.2009
A tune-up for one of the most sophisticated imaging devices ever made 11.02.2009
Hint: It's actually not on the ground, nor in the oceans, but up in the sky—way up in the sky. 10.21.2009
One of the greatest thinkers in physics says the human brain—and the universe itself—must function according to some theory we haven't yet discovered. 10.06.2009
Former Nature editor John Maddox on one of the most famous scientists of our age 09.29.2009
Our star may seem like a model of constancy, but its surface is violently active, rocked by explosions and sun quakes. 09.15.2009
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