Global Energy News (news-and-events/news)

A groundbreaking quantum device small enough to fit in your hand could one day answer one of the biggest questions in science — whether the multiverse is real. This tiny chip can generate extreme electromagnetic fields once only possible in massive, miles-long particle colliders. Beyond probing the fabric of reality, it could lead to powerful gamma ray lasers capable of destroying cancer cells at the atomic level, offering a glimpse into a future where the deepest mysteries of the universe and life-saving medical breakthroughs are unlocked by technology no bigger than your thumb.

Scientists at SLAC unexpectedly created gold hydride, a compound of gold and hydrogen, while studying diamond formation under extreme pressure and heat. This discovery challenges gold’s reputation as a chemically unreactive metal and opens doors to studying dense hydrogen, which could help us understand planetary interiors and fusion processes. The results also suggest that extreme conditions can produce exotic, previously unknown compounds, offering exciting opportunities for future high-pressure chemistry research.

At the Large Hadron Collider, scientists from the University of Kansas achieved a fleeting form of modern-day alchemy — turning lead into gold for just a fraction of a second. Using ultra-peripheral collisions, where ions nearly miss but interact through powerful photon exchanges, they managed to knock protons out of nuclei, creating new, short-lived elements. This breakthrough not only grabbed global attention but could help design safer, more advanced particle accelerators of the future.

Physicists have heated gold to over 19,000 Kelvin, more than 14 times its melting point, without melting it, smashing the long-standing “entropy catastrophe” limit. Using an ultra-fast laser pulse at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source, they kept the gold crystalline at extreme heat, opening new frontiers in high-energy-density physics, fusion research, and planetary science.

Scientists have found that microscopic gold clusters can act like the world’s most accurate quantum systems, while being far easier to scale up. With tunable spin properties and mass production potential, they could transform quantum computing and sensing.

Using the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, researchers have captured the hidden, never-ending vibrations of atoms inside molecules. This first-ever direct view of zero-point motion reveals that atoms move in precise, synchronized patterns, even in their lowest energy state.

ETH Zurich researchers levitated a nano glass sphere cluster with record-setting quantum purity at room temperature, avoiding costly cooling. Using optical tweezers, they isolated quantum zero-point motion, paving the way for future quantum sensors in navigation, medicine, and fundamental physics.

Physicists are exploring thorium-229’s unique properties to create a nuclear clock so precise it could detect the faintest hints of dark matter. Recent measurement advances may allow scientists to spot tiny shifts in the element’s resonance spectrum, potentially revealing the nature of this mysterious substance.

A rare mineral from a 1724 meteorite defies the rules of heat flow, acting like both a crystal and a glass. Thanks to AI and quantum physics, researchers uncovered its bizarre ability to maintain constant thermal conductivity, a breakthrough that could revolutionize heat management in technology and industry.

Long before stars lit up the sky, the universe was a hot, dense place where simple chemistry quietly set the stage for everything to come. Scientists have now recreated the first molecule ever to form, helium hydride, and discovered it played a much bigger role in the birth of stars than we thought. Using a special ultra-cold lab setup, they mimicked conditions from over 13 billion years ago and found that this ancient molecule helped cool the universe just enough for stars to ignite. Their findings could rewrite part of the story about how the cosmos evolved from darkness to light.

A team of engineers at RMIT University has developed a groundbreaking 3D-printed titanium alloy that s stronger, more ductile, and nearly 30% cheaper to produce than the traditional standard. By replacing expensive vanadium with more accessible elements and rethinking how titanium alloys are designed, the team created a material with improved performance and more uniform microstructure key factors for aerospace and medical applications.

Plastic pollution is a mounting global issue, but scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have taken a bold step forward by creating a new bioplastic inspired by the structure of leaves. Their innovation, LEAFF, enhances strength, functionality, and biodegradability by utilizing cellulose nanofibers, outperforming even traditional plastics. It degrades at room temperature, can be printed on, and resists air and water, offering a game-changing solution for sustainable packaging.

AI is helping scientists crack the code on next-gen batteries that could replace lithium-ion tech. By discovering novel porous materials, researchers may have paved the way for more powerful and sustainable energy storage using abundant elements like magnesium.

Physicists at MIT recreated the double-slit experiment using individual photons and atoms held in laser light, uncovering the true limits of light’s wave–particle duality. Their results proved Einstein’s proposal wrong and confirmed a core prediction of quantum mechanics.

Physicists have discovered that when beams of light interact at the quantum level, they can generate ghost-like particles that briefly emerge from nothing and affect real matter. This rare phenomenon, known as light-on-light scattering, challenges the classical idea that light waves pass through each other untouched.

A Penn State-led research team has unraveled the long-standing mystery of how lightning begins inside thunderclouds. Their findings offer the first quantitative, physics-based explanation for lightning initiation—and a glimpse into the stormy heart of Earth’s atmosphere.

At the edge of two exotic materials, scientists have discovered a new state of matter called a "quantum liquid crystal" that behaves unlike anything we've seen before. When a conductive Weyl semimetal and a magnetic spin ice meet under a powerful magnetic field, strange and exciting quantum behavior emerges—electrons flow in odd directions and break traditional symmetry. These findings could open doors to creating ultra-sensitive quantum sensors and exploring exotic states of matter in extreme environments.

A tiny 3 kg detector has made a huge leap in neutrino science by detecting rare CEvNS interactions at a Swiss reactor. This elusive effect, long predicted and hard to measure, was captured with unprecedented clarity. The achievement could kick off a new era of compact, mobile neutrino detectors with powerful applications.

Deep beneath the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider unleashes staggering amounts of energy and radiation—enough to fry most electronics. Enter a team of Columbia engineers, who built ultra-rugged, radiation-resistant chips that now play a pivotal role in capturing data from subatomic particle collisions. These custom-designed ADCs not only survive the hostile environment inside CERN but also help filter and digitize the most critical collision events, enabling physicists to study elusive phenomena like the Higgs boson.

Researchers are exploring AI-powered digital twins as a game-changing tool to accelerate the clean energy transition. These digital models simulate and optimize real-world energy systems like wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and biomass. But while they hold immense promise for improving efficiency and sustainability, the technology is still riddled with challenges—from environmental variability and degraded equipment modeling to data scarcity and complex biological processes.