Time’s Second Arrow: Evolution, Order, and a New Law of Nature Robert M. Hazen and Michael L. Wong W. W. Norton (2026) Like evolution by natural selection, some ideas that start out as revolutionary can become so intuitive that they seem banal to future generations. Mineralogist Robert Hazen and planetary scientist Michael Wong must hope
You’re walking the dog at night, and your little flashlight, which has been getting dimmer, conks out. Instead of stumbling home in the dark, wouldn’t it be great if you could somehow eke a little more energy out of the batteries inside? That’s not as crazy as it sounds. When a battery-powered device stops working,
Glueballs are made of gluons, which bind quarks to form protons and neutrons.Credit: Sefa kart/Getty After almost two decades of searching, a team of physicists in China says it has observed strong evidence of a mysterious particle called a glueball that is made entirely of force-carrying particles. Researchers at the Beijing Spectrometer III (BESIII) Collaboration,
The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, UK, faces closure if alternative funding is not secured.Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty A growing clamour of voices is calling for the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, to reinstate funding for the iconic Lovell radio telescope, at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the
The shipping industry needs low-carbon fuels if it is to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. But options are limited. Batteries can power ferries and vessels for use in harbours, but are impractical over long distances1. Methanol is hard to produce sustainably2. Ammonia is toxic and its supply chain is polluting3. Hydrogen is too bulky
To test these new ideas, researchers are exploring the infant universe through simulations. “There’s actually been really remarkable progress since Webb launched, really in the last year or so, on numerical simulations,” Somerville told attendees, adding that these new simulations “perhaps are more appropriate and more informative for interpreting observations in the high-redshift universe.” As