Reference Terms
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Weapons of mass destruction
Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a term used to describe a munition with the capacity to indiscriminately kill large numbers of living beings. The phrase broadly encompasses several areas of weapon synthesis, including nuclear, biological, chemical and, increasingly, radiological weapons.
The term first arose in 1937 in reference to the mass destruction of Guernica, Spain, by aerial bombardment. Following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and progressing through the Cold War, the term came to refer more to non-conventional weapons. The phrase entered popular usage in relation to the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. Terms used in a military context include atomic, biological, and chemical warfare (ABC warfare), nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) after the invention of the hydrogen bomb, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN), recognizing the threat of non-explosive radiological weapons.
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Matter & Energy News
February 21, 2026
Feb. 21, 2026 Scientists may have spotted a long-sought triplet superconductor — a material that can transmit both electricity and electron spin with zero resistance. That ability could dramatically stabilize quantum computers while slashing their energy use. ...
Feb. 20, 2026 Qubits, the heart of quantum computers, can change performance in fractions of a second — but until now, scientists couldn’t see it happening. Researchers at NBI have built a real-time monitoring system that tracks these rapid fluctuations about ...
Feb. 20, 2026 Oxford researchers have found a way to visualize one of the most hidden — yet critical — components inside lithium-ion batteries. By tagging polymer binders with traceable markers, they revealed ...
Feb. 19, 2026 Scientists have taken a major step toward mimicking nature’s tiniest gateways by creating ultra-small pores that rival the dimensions of biological ion channels—just a few atoms wide. The breakthrough opens new possibilities for single-molecule ...
Feb. 19, 2026 Scientists at the University of New Hampshire have unleashed artificial intelligence to dramatically speed up the hunt for next-generation magnetic materials. By building a massive, searchable database of 67,573 magnetic compounds — including 25 ...
Feb. 19, 2026 A surprising breakthrough could help sodium-ion batteries rival lithium—and even turn seawater into drinking water. Scientists discovered that keeping water inside a key battery material, instead of removing it as traditionally done, dramatically ...
Feb. 18, 2026 Ocean waves are a vast and steady source of renewable energy, but capturing their power efficiently has long frustrated engineers. A researcher at The University of Osaka has now explored a bold new approach: a gyroscopic wave energy converter that ...
Feb. 16, 2026 Scientists have developed a new way to read the hidden states of Majorana qubits, which store information in paired quantum modes that resist noise. The results confirm their protected nature and show millisecond scale coherence, bringing robust ...
Feb. 16, 2026 For the first time, researchers have shown that self-assembled phosphorus chains can host genuinely one-dimensional electron behavior. Using advanced imaging and spectroscopy techniques, they separated the signals from chains aligned in different ...
Feb. 13, 2026 As data keeps exploding worldwide, scientists are racing to pack more information into smaller and smaller spaces — and a team at the University of Stuttgart may have just unlocked a powerful new trick. By slightly twisting ultra-thin layers of a ...
Feb. 13, 2026 Scientists at HKUST have unveiled a major leap forward in calcium-ion battery technology, potentially opening the door to safer, more sustainable energy storage for everything from renewable power grids to electric vehicles. By designing a novel ...
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 ...
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Feb. 21, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered one of the most mysterious galaxies ever found — a dim, ghostly object called CDG-2 that is almost entirely made of dark ...
Feb. 16, 2026 New data from major dark-energy observatories suggest the universe may not expand forever after all. A Cornell physicist calculates that the cosmos is heading toward a dramatic reversal: after ...
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. 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 ...
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 ...