Matter & Energy News

January 2, 2026

Top Headlines

This Tiny Chemistry Change Makes Flow Batteries Last Far Longer

Jan. 1, 2026 A new advance in bromine-based flow batteries could remove one of the biggest obstacles to long-lasting, affordable energy storage. Scientists developed a way to chemically capture corrosive bromine during battery operation, keeping its ...

A Gold Catalyst Just Broke a Decade Old Green Chemistry Record

Dec. 29, 2025 A new catalyst design could transform how acetaldehyde is made from renewable bioethanol. Researchers found that a carefully balanced mix of gold, manganese, and copper creates a powerful synergy that boosts efficiency while lowering operating ...

MIT Just Made Aluminum 5x Stronger with 3D Printing

Dec. 29, 2025 MIT researchers have designed a printable aluminum alloy that’s five times stronger than cast aluminum and holds up at extreme temperatures. Machine learning helped them zero in on the ideal recipe in a fraction of the time traditional methods ...

This Hidden Flaw Has Been Breaking EV Batteries

Dec. 29, 2025 A major breakthrough in battery science reveals why promising single-crystal lithium-ion batteries haven’t lived up to expectations. Researchers found that these batteries crack due to uneven internal reactions, not the grain-boundary damage seen ...

Critical Minerals Are Hiding in Plain Sight in U.S. Mines

Dec. 28, 2025 Researchers found that U.S. metal mines already contain large amounts of critical minerals that are mostly going unused. Recovering even a small fraction of these byproducts could sharply reduce dependence on imports for materials essential to clean ...

A New Superconductor Breaks Rules Physicists Thought Were Fixed

Dec. 26, 2025 A shiny gray crystal called platinum-bismuth-two hides an electronic world unlike anything scientists have seen before. Researchers discovered that only the crystal’s outer surfaces become superconducting—allowing electrons to flow with zero ...

What Are Asteroids Really Made of? New Analysis Brings Space Mining Closer to Reality

Dec. 25, 2025 Scientists are digging into the hidden makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. By analyzing rare meteorites ...

“Purifying” Photons: Scientists Found a Way to Clean Light Itself

Dec. 23, 2025 A new discovery shows that messy, stray light can be used to clean up quantum systems instead of disrupting them. University of Iowa researchers found that unwanted photons produced by lasers can be canceled out by carefully tuning the light itself. ...

Scientists Unlocked a Superconductor Mystery Under Crushing Pressure

Dec. 21, 2025 Superconductors promise loss-free electricity, but most only work at extreme cold. Hydrogen-rich materials changed that—yet their inner workings remained hidden because they only exist under enormous pressure. Now, researchers have directly ...

Gravitational Waves May Reveal Hidden Dark Matter Around Black Holes

Dec. 19, 2025 Gravitational waves from black holes may soon reveal where dark matter is hiding. A new model shows how dark matter surrounding massive black holes leaves detectable fingerprints in the waves recorded by future space ...

Light-printed Electrodes Turn Skin and Clothing Into Sensors

Dec. 15, 2025 Researchers in Sweden have unveiled a way to create high-performance electronic electrodes using nothing more than visible light and specially designed water-soluble monomers. This gentle, chemical-free approach lets conductive plastics form ...

New Quantum Antenna Reveals a Hidden Terahertz World

Dec. 13, 2025 Researchers at the University of Warsaw have unveiled a breakthrough method for detecting and precisely calibrating terahertz frequency combs using a quantum antenna made from Rydberg atoms. By combining atomic electrometry with a powerful ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:24am EST

Physicists Close in on the Elusive Sterile Neutrino

Dec. 30, 2025 Neutrinos may be nearly invisible, but they play a starring role in the Universe. Long-standing anomalies had hinted at a mysterious fourth “sterile” neutrino, potentially rewriting the laws of ...

Fusion Reactors May Create Dark Matter Particles

Dec. 28, 2025 Researchers say fusion reactors might do more than generate clean energy—they could also create particles linked to dark matter. A new theoretical study shows how neutrons inside future fusion ...

Large Hadron Collider Finally Explains How Fragile Matter Forms

Dec. 27, 2025 In collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, hotter than the Sun’s core by a staggering margin, scientists have finally solved a long-standing mystery: how delicate particles like deuterons and ...

Physicists Found a Way to Make Thermodynamics Work in the Quantum World

Dec. 23, 2025 More than 200 years ago, Count Rumford showed that heat isn’t a mysterious substance but something you can generate endlessly through motion. That insight laid the foundation for thermodynamics, ...

Physicists Made Atoms Behave Like a Quantum Circuit

Dec. 23, 2025 Using ultracold atoms and laser light, researchers recreated the behavior of a Josephson junction—an essential component of quantum computers and voltage standards. The appearance of Shapiro steps ...

This Simulation Reveals What Really Happens Near Black Holes

Dec. 22, 2025 Black holes are among the most extreme objects in the universe, and now scientists can model them more accurately than ever before. By combining Einstein’s gravity with realistic behavior of light ...

Scientists Spent 10 Years Chasing a Particle That Wasn’t There

Dec. 18, 2025 After a decade of painstaking measurements, scientists have delivered a major plot twist in particle physics: a long-hypothesized “mystery particle” likely doesn’t exist. Using the MicroBooNE ...

A Quantum Mystery That Stumped Scientists for Decades Is Solved

Dec. 17, 2025 A long-standing physics mystery has been solved with the discovery of emergent photon-like behavior inside a strange quantum material. The finding confirms a true 3D quantum spin liquid and unlocks a ...

Physicists Found a Way to See Heat in Empty Space

Dec. 16, 2025 Physicists have found a clever way to detect the elusive Unruh effect without extreme accelerations. By using atoms that emit light cooperatively between mirrors, acceleration subtly shifts when a ...

Hidden Dimensions Could Explain Where Mass Comes from

Dec. 15, 2025 A new theory proposes that the universe’s fundamental forces and particle properties may arise from the geometry of hidden extra dimensions. These dimensions could twist and evolve over time, ...

A Clear New Material Could Make Windows Super Efficient

Dec. 13, 2025 MOCHI uses microscopic, air-filled channels to stop heat in its tracks while remaining nearly crystal clear. If scaled up, it could transform windows into powerful energy savers and solar ...

Astronomers Watched a Sleeping Neutron Star Roar Back to Life

Dec. 14, 2025 Astronomers tracked a decade of dramatic changes in P13, a neutron star undergoing supercritical accretion. Its X-ray luminosity rose and fell by factors of hundreds while its rotation rate ...

Ghost Particles Slip Through Earth and Spark a Hidden Atomic Reaction

Dec. 12, 2025 Scientists have managed to observe solar neutrinos carrying out a rare atomic transformation deep underground, converting carbon-13 into nitrogen-13 inside the SNO+ detector. By tracking two faint ...

Researchers Catch Atoms Standing Still Inside Molten Metal

Dec. 11, 2025 Scientists have uncovered that some atoms in liquids don't move at all—even at extreme temperatures—and these anchored atoms dramatically alter the way materials freeze. Using advanced ...

A Violent Star Explosion Just Revealed a Hidden Recipe for Life

Dec. 8, 2025 XRISM’s high-precision X-ray data revealed unusually strong signatures of chlorine and potassium inside the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. These levels are far higher than theoretical models ...

Paper Mill Waste Could Unlock Cheaper Clean Energy

Dec. 11, 2025 Scientists developed a high-performance hydrogen-production catalyst using lignin, a common waste product from paper and biorefinery processes. The nickel–iron oxide nanoparticles embedded in ...

Scientists May Have Found Dark Matter After 100 Years of Searching

Nov. 29, 2025 Nearly a century after astronomers first proposed dark matter to explain the strange motions of galaxies, scientists may finally be catching a glimpse of it. A University of Tokyo researcher ...

A 1950s Material Just Set a Modern Record for Lightning-Fast Chips

Dec. 5, 2025 Researchers engineered a strained germanium layer on silicon that allows charge to move faster than in any silicon-compatible material to date. This record mobility could lead to chips that run ...

Europe Launches Bold Plan to Harness Twisting Beams of Light

Nov. 24, 2025 Europe is investing in a coordinated effort to develop high-power optical vortex technologies and train new specialists in the field. The HiPOVor network unites academia and industry to advance ...

Hidden Copper Switch Supercharges Green Ammonia Production

Nov. 22, 2025 Researchers discovered that copper oxide catalysts form metallic copper mid-reaction, triggering a dramatic boost in ammonia output. The insight offers a roadmap for designing cleaner, more efficient ...

X-Ray Movies Reveal How Intense Lasers Tear a Buckyball Apart

Nov. 28, 2025 Using intense X-rays, researchers captured a buckyball as it expanded, split and shed electrons under strong laser fields. Detailed scattering measurements showed how the molecule behaves at low, ...

The “impossible” LED Breakthrough That Changes Everything

Dec. 5, 2025 Scientists have discovered how to electrically power insulating nanoparticles using organic molecules that act like tiny antennas. These hybrids generate extremely pure near-infrared light, ideal for ...

This Glowing Particle in a Laser Trap May Reveal How Lightning Begins

Nov. 24, 2025 Using a precisely aligned pair of laser beams, scientists can now hold a single aerosol particle in place and monitor how it charges up. The particle’s glow signals each step in its changing ...

Light Has Been Hiding a Magnetic Secret for Nearly 200 Years

Nov. 20, 2025 New research shows that light’s magnetic field is far more influential than scientists once believed. The team found that this magnetic component significantly affects how light rotates as it ...

Scientists Just Teleported Information Using Light

Nov. 29, 2025 Quantum communication is edging closer to reality thanks to a breakthrough in teleporting information between photons from different quantum dots—one of the biggest challenges in building a quantum ...

A Compact Fusion Machine Just Hit Gigapascal Pressures

Nov. 20, 2025 Operating a new device named the Fusion Z-pinch Experiment 3, or FuZE-3, Zap Energy has now achieved plasmas with electron pressures as high as 830 megapascals (MPa), or 1.6 gigapascals (GPa) total, ...

MIT Ultrasonic Tech Pulls Drinking Water from Air in Minutes

Nov. 20, 2025 MIT engineers have created an ultrasonic device that rapidly frees water from materials designed to absorb moisture from the air. Instead of waiting hours for heat to evaporate the trapped water, the ...

Nearly 47 Million Americans Live Near Hidden Fossil Fuel Sites

Nov. 20, 2025 A nationwide analysis has uncovered how sprawling fossil fuel infrastructure sits surprisingly close to millions of American homes. The research shows that 46.6 million people live within about a ...

A Simple Oxygen Hack Creates 7 New Ceramic Materials

Dec. 4, 2025 Penn State researchers created seven new high-entropy oxides by removing oxygen during synthesis, enabling metals that normally destabilize to form rock-salt ceramics. Machine learning helped ...

This Tiny Quantum Clock Packs a Billion-Fold Energy Mystery

Nov. 17, 2025 Scientists built a tiny clock from single-electron jumps to probe the true energy cost of quantum timekeeping. They discovered that reading the clock’s output requires vastly more energy than the ...