Reference Terms
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Nature
Nature (also called the material world, the material universe, the natural world, and the natural universe) is all matter and energy, especially in its essential form. Nature may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects - the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness - wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention.
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Matter & Energy News
February 11, 2026
Feb. 6, 2026 Inspired by the shape-shifting skin of octopuses, Penn State researchers developed a smart hydrogel that can change appearance, texture, and shape on command. The material is programmed using a ...
Feb. 6, 2026 Quantum computers struggle because their qubits are incredibly easy to disrupt, especially during calculations. A new experiment shows how to perform quantum operations while continuously fixing errors, rather than pausing protection to compute. The ...
Feb. 5, 2026 Researchers have built a paper-thin chip that converts infrared light into visible light and directs it precisely, all without mechanical motion. The design overcomes a long-standing efficiency-versus-control problem in light-shaping materials. This ...
Feb. 5, 2026 A new metasurface design lets light of different spins bend, focus, and behave independently—while staying sharp across many colors. The trick combines two geometric phase effects so each spin channel can be tuned without interfering with the ...
Feb. 4, 2026 A new optical device allows researchers to generate and switch between two stable, donut-shaped light patterns called skyrmions. These light vortices hold their shape even when disturbed, making them promising for wireless data transmission. Using a ...
Feb. 3, 2026 Researchers have found that manganese, an abundant and inexpensive metal, can be used to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into formate, a potential hydrogen source for fuel cells. The key was a clever redesign that made the catalyst last far ...
Feb. 2, 2026 A new light-based breakthrough could help quantum computers finally scale up. Stanford researchers created miniature optical cavities that efficiently collect light from individual atoms, allowing many qubits to be read at once. The team has already ...
Feb. 1, 2026 Researchers have discovered a hidden quantum geometry inside materials that subtly steers electrons, echoing how gravity warps light in space. Once thought to exist only on paper, this effect has now been observed experimentally in a popular quantum ...
Jan. 31, 2026 A strange, glowing form of matter called dusty plasma turns out to be incredibly sensitive to magnetic fields. Researchers found that even weak fields can change how tiny particles grow, simply by nudging electrons into new motions. In lab ...
Jan. 30, 2026 Researchers have found a way to make ordinary aluminum tubes float indefinitely, even when submerged for long periods or punched full of holes. By engineering the metal’s surface to repel water, the tubes trap air inside and refuse to sink, even ...
Jan. 29, 2026 Order doesn’t always form perfectly—and those imperfections can be surprisingly powerful. In materials like liquid crystals, tiny “defects” emerge when symmetry breaks, shaping everything ...
Jan. 29, 2026 Scientists have created a device that captures carbon dioxide and transforms it into a useful chemical in a single step. The new electrode works with realistic exhaust gases rather than requiring purified CO2. It converts the captured gas into ...
Latest Headlines
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Feb. 10, 2026 A long-standing mystery in spintronics has just been shaken up. A strange electrical effect called unusual magnetoresistance shows up almost everywhere scientists look—even in systems where the ...
Feb. 9, 2026 Time may feel smooth and continuous, but at the quantum level it behaves very differently. Physicists have now found a way to measure how long ultrafast quantum events actually last, without relying ...
Feb. 8, 2026 Scientists at the University of Warwick have cracked a long-standing problem in air pollution science: how to predict the movement of irregularly shaped nanoparticles as they drift through the air we ...
Feb. 8, 2026 Physicists at Heidelberg University have developed a new theory that finally unites two long-standing and seemingly incompatible views of how exotic particles behave inside quantum matter. In some ...
Feb. 7, 2026 Astronomers propose that an ultra-dense clump of exotic dark matter could be masquerading as the powerful object thought to anchor our galaxy, explaining both the blistering speeds of stars near the ...
Feb. 7, 2026 Scientists have cracked a key mystery behind spider silk’s legendary strength and flexibility. They discovered that tiny molecular interactions act like natural glue, holding silk proteins together ...
Feb. 5, 2026 Physicists have watched a quantum fluid do something once thought almost impossible: stop moving. In experiments with ultra-thin graphene, researchers observed a superfluid—normally defined by its ...
Feb. 3, 2026 Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of dark matter, revealing the invisible framework that shaped the Universe long before stars and galaxies formed. Using powerful new observations ...
Feb. 3, 2026 A newly detected gravitational wave, GW250114, is giving scientists their clearest look yet at a black hole collision—and a powerful way to test ...
Feb. 2, 2026 MACE is a next-generation experiment designed to catch muonium transforming into its antimatter twin, a process that would rewrite the rules of particle physics. The last search for this effect ended ...