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
August 1, 2026
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July 30, 2026 Engineers have transformed a notoriously brittle cobalt-aluminum compound into a material that is both extremely strong and capable of bending without breaking. Their nanoscale design produced a ...
July 29, 2026 Rice University chemists have found a new way to make neodymium, a rare-earth metal, interact with oxygen. Using a specially designed molecular structure described as a “basket,” the team positioned the atoms so they could form a bond once ...
July 28, 2026 Scientists have created twisted laser beams that interact differently with right-handed and left-handed molecules, revealing their identity through the fragments they produce. The approach could provide a faster, simpler, and more sensitive way to ...
July 22, 2026 Researchers discovered a proton-assisted mechanism that greatly improves how triplet energy moves between quantum dots and nearby molecules. The proton briefly shifts position, helps coordinate electron movement, and then returns to where it ...
July 21, 2026 Scientists have created a programmable optical chip that can slow light on demand, giving engineers far greater control over how optical signals propagate through a circuit. The technology could provide the delays, synchronization, and buffering ...
July 19, 2026 Scientists are testing two promising ways to destroy PFAS, the stubborn “forever chemicals” that can accumulate in water and resist normal treatment. One method uses collapsing vapor bubbles to generate extreme heat and reactive molecules, while ...
July 17, 2026 A team of mathematicians used whimsical "silly sprinklers" to solve a physics mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades. Their experiments showed that the rotation of both normal and reverse ...
July 17, 2026 A new particle detector called PLATON could replace millions of tiny detector components with a single block of light-producing material. Using a light-field camera, highly sensitive photon sensors, and AI, it reconstructs particle paths in fast, ...
July 16, 2026 Researchers have created self-destructing living plastic that uses engineered bacteria to completely break itself down when activated. The material degrades in just six days without creating ...
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July 31, 2026 Scientists traced a mysterious surge of low-energy gamma rays from zinc-70 to magnetic changes occurring inside its nucleus. The breakthrough could improve models of how stars, supernovae, and ...
July 30, 2026 Physicists have uncovered a surprising limit to electrical resistance caused by particles colliding. Using ultracold potassium atoms trapped in a grid of light, researchers created a highly ...
July 29, 2026 Ultrafast X-rays revealed how a molecule converts absorbed light into motion in just trillionths of a second. Individual atoms recorded different stages of the process, opening a powerful new window ...
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July 20, 2026 A new theoretical study offers a possible explanation for how the Universe can grow more complex without violating the second law of thermodynamics. Using a quantum gravity framework called Gravity ...
July 19, 2026 Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes. The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and ...
July 17, 2026 JWST has captured unusually detailed images of gas feeding the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4696. A vast filament appears to funnel material into an 800-light-year-wide spinning disk, ...
July 16, 2026 A new review highlights exciting progress in atomically thin quantum materials where light and magnetism work together in ways never before possible. In these materials, light-generated excitons can ...
July 13, 2026 Dark matter may be far more complicated than scientists once believed. A new study suggests it could consist of at least two different kinds of particles that slowly separate over time, with heavier ...
July 13, 2026 Scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have discovered a surprisingly simple way to create exotic light structures called optical skyrmions using a 200-year-old optical effect ...