Stories by Davide Castelvecchi

A structure that links amino acids suggests that early organisms could have been based on an RNA-protein mix

Analysts explain why some fear that the Russian military will use chemical weapons—and how the world would know if it did

Dennis Sullivan’s work has advanced the study of shapes, and he developed tools that have helped to solve many mathematical problems

Fresh data suggest instrumental errors may have mimicked a purported signal from the universe’s first stars

The latest effort to weigh the elusive particle produces a more precise estimate of its upper limit

The basic concept of quantum spin provides an understanding of a vast range of physical phenomena

The latest bounty of 35 events features oddball black holes and a miniature neutron star

Physicists have imaged elusive ‘Wigner crystals’ for the first time

The European and Japanese spacecraft performed the first of six slingshot maneuvers around the planet. It will ultimately insert two probes into orbit in 2025

Hints of a previously unknown, primordial form of the substance could explain why the cosmos now seems to be expanding faster than theory predicts

The rare tetraquark is one of dozens of nonelementary particles discovered at the accelerator and could help test theories about the strong nuclear force

High-resolution images suggest the star spewed out so much dust that its brightness dropped by two thirds in 2020

A trove of new detections suggests that the bursts could be the result of at least two separate astrophysical phenomena

Their structures were once controversial. Now researchers have discovered quasicrystals in the aftermath of a 1945 bomb test

Experimental anomalies have sent researchers scrambling to concoct new explanations

A result that has been 20 years in the making could reveal the existence of new particles and upend fundamental physics

The experiment connects three devices with entangled photons, demonstrating a key technique that could enable a future quantum Internet

A laser generates quantum randomness at a rate of 250 trillion bits per second and could lead to devices small enough to fit on a single chip

Cosmologists suggest that an exotic substance called quintessence could be accelerating the Universe’s expansion—but the evidence is still tentative

Astrophysicists now have enough black-hole mergers to map their frequency over the cosmos’s history

Jigsaw-puzzle-shaped seams that hold a notoriously tough insect’s wing cases together could inspire engineers

A compound of hydrogen, carbon and sulfur has broken a symbolic barrier—but its high-pressure conditions make it difficult to analyze

Pictures created from old observations show the void’s stormy evolution over the past decade

A long-awaited map of the big bang’s afterglow fails to settle a debate over how fast the universe is expanding