⚛ Physics Press Releases

An international team of researchers, including physicists from HSE MIEM, has demonstrated that nonmagnetic impurities can help more accurately reveal Majorana zero modes—quantum states considered promising building blocks for quantum computing. The researchers found that these impurities shift the energy levels that typically obscure the Majorana signal, while leaving the mode itself largely unaffected, thereby making its spectral peak more distinct. The study has been published in Research. Majorana ...

Scientists from the University of Manchester have played a leading role in the discovery of a new subatomic particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The particle, known as the Ξcc⁺ (Xi‑cc‑plus), is a new type of heavy proton-like particle containing two charm quarks and one down quark. The result is the first particle discovery made using the upgraded LHCb detector, a major international project involving more than 1,000 scientists across 20 countries. The UK made the largest national contribution to the upgrade, with significant leadership ...

Seemesh Bhaskar believes cancer detection should happen years before a diagnosis ever appears in a medical chart.  The postdoctoral researcher in Professor Brian Cunningham’s Nanosensors Group is helping develop technology that could detect signs of cancer five to eight years earlier than traditional diagnostic tools by identifying molecular signals long before symptoms emerge.  Bhaskar is using his multidisciplinary academic background in physics, environmental diagnostics, photonics, chemistry and ...

Researchers have developed a microscopic 3D-printed optical device that can efficiently combine light from dozens of small semiconductor lasers into a single multimode optical fiber with very low loss. The team demonstrated photonic lanterns that multiplex 7, 19, and 37 multimode VCSEL lasers directly into a fiber while preserving brightness and easing alignment constraints. By enabling scalable incoherent beam combining of many multimode lasers, the technology could simplify and improve high-power laser systems, optical communications, and other ...

Next week, nearly 14,000 scientists from around the world will convene to share new research results from across physics at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit. The conference will be held in Denver and online everywhere March 15-20.   Press kit Press releases, tip sheets, and other materials are now available in the Global Physics Summit digital press kit. Registered journalists and public information officers will also receive emails with information daily for the duration of the meeting.   Press room  In-person press registrants will have access to a press room (meeting room 608 in the Colorado Convention ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Every time we feel a gentle tap on the skin, specialized nerve cells convert that physical force into an electrical signal the brain can interpret as touch. While scientists have long known that a protein called PIEZO2 acts as a key sensor for touch, it remained unclear why PIEZO2 is specialized for the localized mechanical forces experienced by sensory neurons, whereas its close relative PIEZO1 responds to broader mechanical stresses such as those generated when cells stretch, as occurs in blood vessels. Now, a new study from Scripps Research ...

Scientists led by a physicist at the University of Oregon have taken a major step in solving an enduring mystery that we encounter every time we look through a window or stare at a phone screen. For centuries, scientists have studied how and why glass forms from a molten state into a rigid, solid material, while still maintaining an amorphous or disordered internal structure like a liquid. UO physicist Eric Corwin and a team of current and former students have now created on a computer the first “ideal ...

About one in 20 infants worldwide is subjected to physical abuse by a caregiver in their first two years of life. That’s the central finding of a new study co-led by researchers from the UBC faculty of medicine and Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), the first to bring together anonymous reports from caregivers about behaviours like spanking, slapping, shaking and hitting. “About four to five per cent of parents are behaving in physically aggressive ways toward their babies,” said Dr. ...

Electrons can be ‘kicked across’ solar materials at almost the fastest speed nature allows, scientists have discovered – challenging long-held theories about how solar energy systems work. The finding could help researchers design more efficient ways of harvesting sunlight and converting it into electricity. In experiments capturing events lasting just 18 femtoseconds – less than 20 quadrillionths of a second – researchers at the University of Cambridge observed charge separation happening within a single molecular vibration. “We deliberately designed a system that, according to conventional ...

Biological tactile perception is closely intertwined with morphological structures. Complex biological structures such as human fingers, cat paws, and elephant trunks endow organisms with rich environmental interaction capabilities. However, existing vision-based tactile sensors in robotics are mostly limited to simple planar geometries, and biomorphic design remains underexplored. Traditional tactile sensors suffer from insufficient shape adaptability and limited precision in capturing intricate contact details. Developing vision-based tactile sensors with biomorphic forms through ...

Recent decades have witnessed rapid advancements in high-intensity laser technology. The combination of laser irradiation and novel materials is opening exciting avenues for the design of functional materials and devices. Semiconductors are ideal platforms for generating laser-driven functionalities because they can exhibit novel features such as ultrafast optical transparency. This effect arises from electronic occupation redistribution driven by ultrafast excitation, which manifests as a phenomenon called transient Pauli blocking. In a new development, a team ...

Lasers cut precisely and without contact – ideal for surgery. The problem is that, in hard tissues such as bone, they are too slow and do not cut deep enough. Researchers at the University of Basel have now demonstrated a way to cut much deeper and faster with a surgical laser than with previous laser systems. The saw, chisel and drill are tried-and-true tools in bone surgery. In the future, lasers could be added to this toolbox, especially when it comes to very precise cuts. Lasers do not exert any mechanical pressure, meaning they can reduce the risk of ...

Water droplets have a unique ability: They can leap from a surface on their own.  This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as when a surface repels water or when heat is involved, such as a water or oil droplet skittering across a hot pan. It also happens at a very small scale. Up to this point, researchers have observed droplets up to 3 millimeters in diameter exhibiting this behavior. When droplets are larger than that, gravity prevents it from jumping. A new study published in Nature identifies a previously unreported way to get a puddle of water up to a centimeter wide to jump into the air, something ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2026 Highlights: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rare, progressive disease characterized by the degeneration of nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. The study does not show cause and effect; it only shows an association. A new study of half a million people compared early birds who are more productive in the morning to night owls who are more productive later in the day. It found being an early bird was associated with a 20% lower risk of ALS when compared to being a night owl. The study also looked at physical activity and found being more physically active was associated with a 26% lower ...

LEDs no wider than a human hair could soon take on work traditionally handled by lasers, from moving data inside server racks to powering next-generation displays. New research co-authored by UC Santa Barbara doctoral student Roark Chao points to a practical path forward. “We’re talking about devices that are literally the size of a hair follicle,” said Chao, who studies electrical engineering. “If you can engineer how the light comes out, those microLEDs can start to replace lasers in short-distance data communication.” The work builds on UCSB’s longstanding strengths in gallium nitride research and optoelectronics. Chao is co-advised by Steven ...

In everyday life, we can easily tell whether objects are packed tightly (high density) or spread out sparsely (low density) just by looking at them. But when dealing with time-series event data, scattering along a timeline, it is not as straightforward to objectively identify when the density is high or low. In this situation, a statistical method called kernel density estimation is useful. By assigning a probability to each data point and overlaying these distributions, the method provides a smooth estimate of how event density changes over time. It is particularly effective ...

Acoustic frequency combs organize sound or mechanical vibrations into a series of evenly spaced frequencies, much like the teeth on a comb. They are the acoustic counterparts of optical frequency combs, which consist of equally spaced spectral lines and act as extraordinarily precise rulers for measuring light. While optical frequency combs have revolutionized fields such as precision metrology, spectroscopy, and astronomy, acoustic frequency combs utilize sound waves, which interact with materials in fundamentally different ways ...

(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) — The National Reactor Innovation Center’s Molten Salt Thermophysical Examination Capability is set to begin operation in March, marking a pivotal step toward advancing reactor and fuel cycle technologies. MSTEC, located at the Idaho National Laboratory, is a state-of-the-art, shielded argon glove box for irradiated and nonirradiated actinide materials, specifically high-temperature liquids such as fuel salts. This is one of NRIC’s multiple testing capabilities advancing nuclear energy in the United States. NRIC officially unveiled the capability today during a small ceremony. It was attended ...

A study led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine reveals higher rates of substance use among all non‑heterosexual groups in the U.S., including people who are uncertain of or who use different terms to describe their sexual identity. The analysis was based on the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the first nationally representative dataset to include sexual identity options beyond lesbian, gay, bisexual or heterosexual, and the first to ask respondents ages 12-17 about their sexual identity. More than 52,000 people participated in the survey. The study was published on February 18, 2026 in the American ...

Researchers from North Carolina State University have used laser ablation to create ultra-stretchable, superomniphobic materials without the use of harsh chemical solvents. The materials – which are useful in applications ranging from soft robotics to artificial skin patches – retain their superomniphobic (i.e., super-repellent) properties when stretched up to five times their initial length and at over 5,000 stretch cycles. “Superomniphobic materials can repel virtually any liquid – such as ...

About The Study: In this population-based study, rotator cuff abnormalities were nearly universal after age 40 and showed poor concordance with shoulder symptoms. These findings suggest that rotator cuff abnormalities often represent normal age-related changes rather than disease and call into question the clinical value of routine imaging for atraumatic shoulder pain. The accompanying commentary is co-authored by San Francisco Giants Team Orthopedist Brian Feeley, M.D. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Thomas Ibounig, MD, email thomas.ibounig@helsinki.fi. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.7903) Editor’s ...

Physicists have long recognized the value of photonic graph states in quantum information processing. However, the difficulty of making these graph states has left this value largely untapped. In a step forward for the field, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have proposed a new scheme they term “emit-then-add” for producing highly entangled states of many photons that can work with current hardware. Published in npj Quantum Information, their strategy lays the groundwork for a wide range of quantum enhanced operations including measurement-based quantum computing. Entanglement is a key driver in delivering ...

The Interactions Collaboration has announced the winning images of the 2025 Global Physics Photowalk. These photographs transform the invisible frontier of particle physics — from a detector hunting for dark matter a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, to a deep-sea neutrino telescope studying violent astrophysical phenomena — into visual testaments that capture the beauty, precision and nature of humankind’s search to understand the universe.  Selected from hundreds of images submitted by more than 100 amateur and professional photographers across the U.S., Europe and Asia, the Global ...

As the rapid development of Bluetooth technology and 5G communication continues to accelerate, electromagnetic interference issues in the ISM band (2.4–2.48 GHz) for Bluetooth devices, as well as the n77 (3.3–4.2 GHz), n78 (3.3–3.8 GHz), and n79 (4.4–5.0 GHz) bands for 5G communications, have become increasingly severe. Now, researchers from Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang University, Jiangxi Agricultural University, and Fudan University, led by Professor Chongbo Liu, Professor Yuhui Peng, Professor Guangsheng Luo, and Professor Xuliang Nie, ...

The dynamic analysis of lower limb biomechanics is crucial for understanding gait, posture, and load distribution, which are foundational for controlling assistive robots like exoskeletons and intelligent prostheses. Traditional methods, including invasive musculoskeletal measurements, while providing precise data, are costly, intrusive, and technically complex, limiting their widespread application. To overcome these limitations, noninvasive approaches, such as musculoskeletal multibody dynamics simulations (MMDS), have been proposed. These simulations combine data from noninvasive sensors like motion capture systems and force plates to ...