Nuclear Energy News

August 25, 2025

Top Headlines

AI Finds Hidden Safe Zones Inside a Fusion Reactor

Aug. 13, 2025 — Scientists have developed a lightning-fast AI tool called HEAT-ML that can spot hidden “safe zones” inside a fusion reactor where parts are protected from blistering plasma heat. Finding these areas, known as magnetic shadows, is key to keeping ...

One Shot, Game Changed: How RAVEN Captured a Petawatt Laser and Supercharged Fusion Research

June 27, 2025 — Scientists have developed a groundbreaking technique called RAVEN that can capture the full complexity of an ultra-intense laser pulse in a single shot—something previously thought nearly ...

Listening to Electrons Talk

May 29, 2025 — Researchers present new experimental and theoretical results for the bound electron g-factor in lithium-like tin which has a much higher nuclear charge than any previous measurement. The experimental accuracy reached a level of 0.5 parts per ...

Engineers Discover a New Class of Materials That Passively Harvest Water from Air

May 24, 2025 — A serendipitous observation has led to a surprising discovery: a new class of nanostructured materials that can pull water from the air, collect it in pores and release it onto surfaces without the ...

Investment Risk for Energy Infrastructure Construction Is Highest for Nuclear Power Plants, Lowest for Solar

May 20, 2025 — The average energy project costs 40% more than expected for construction and takes almost two years longer than planned, finds a new global study. One key insight: The investment risk is highest for ...

Protons on the Move

May 16, 2025 — Scientists have successfully relocated protons outside of an antimatter laboratory with the help of an autonomous, open Penning trap. This breakthrough marks a significant step toward transporting antiprotons produced at the European Organization ...

Successful Experiments at GSI/FAIR Uncover New Island of Asymmetric Fission

May 15, 2025 — An international team of scientists has identified an unexpected region of heavy, neutron-deficient isotopes in the nuclear chart where nuclear fission is predominantly governed by an asymmetric ...

Engineers Tackle Sunlight Intermittency in Solar Desalination

May 15, 2025 — A team of engineers has developed a system that could transform desalination practices, making the process more adaptable, resilient and cheaper. The new system is powered by sunlight and uses a creative approach to heat recovery for extended water ...

Removing Selenium from Water Takes Iron Strength

May 8, 2025 — Environmental engineers have developed critical methods to remove toxic selenium from ...

Smart Spongy Device Captures Water from Thin Air

May 8, 2025 — Engineers have invented a sponge-like device that captures water from thin air and then releases it in a cup using the sun's energy, even in low humidity where other technologies such as fog harvesting and radiative cooling have struggled. The ...

New Silver Mass Brings Us a Step Closer in Our Understanding of the Antineutrino Mass

May 6, 2025 — Neutrinos and antineutrinos are elementary particles with small but unknown mass. High-precision atomic mass measurements have revealed that beta decay of the silver-110 isomer has a strong potential ...

Big Problem for Fusion Energy Solved

May 6, 2025 — A new shortcut can help engineers design leak-proof magnetic confinement systems for fusion reactors 10 times as fast as the gold standard method, without sacrificing accuracy. While several other big challenges remain for all magnetic fusion ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:35pm EDT

Tiny Reactor Boosts Fusion With a Sponge-Like Trick

Aug. 23, 2025 — Researchers at the University of British Columbia have shown that a small bench-top reactor can enhance nuclear fusion rates by electrochemically loading a metal with deuterium fuel. Unlike massive ...

Strange New Shapes May Rewrite the Laws of Physics

Aug. 18, 2025 — By exploring positive geometry, mathematicians are revealing hidden shapes that may unify particle physics and cosmology, offering new ways to understand both collisions in accelerators and the ...

Gold Refuses to Melt at Temperatures Hotter Than the Sun’s Surface

Aug. 18, 2025 — For the first time, researchers have measured atomic temperatures in extreme matter and found gold surviving at 19,000 kelvins, more than 14 times its melting point. The result dismantles a ...

Scientists Stunned by Record-Breaking, Watermelon-Shaped Nucleus

Aug. 16, 2025 — Scientists in Finland have measured the heaviest known nucleus to undergo proton emission, discovering the rare isotope 188-astatine. It exhibits a unique shape and may reveal a new kind of nuclear ...

Gold Survives Impossible Heat, Defying Physics Limits

Aug. 11, 2025 — 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 ...

The Nuclear Clock That Could Finally Unmask Dark Matter

Aug. 9, 2025 — 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 ...

What Happens When Light Smashes Into Itself? Scientists Just Found out

Aug. 1, 2025 — 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 ...

Rutgers Physicists Just Discovered a Strange New State of Matter

Aug. 1, 2025 — 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 ...

After 50 Years, Scientists Finally Catch Elusive Neutrinos Near a Reactor

Aug. 1, 2025 — 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 ...

Aluminium-20 Shatters Nuclear Norms With Explosive Triple-Proton Breakup

July 22, 2025 — Scientists have observed a brand-new and exotic atomic nucleus: aluminium-20. Unlike anything seen before, it decays through a stunning three-proton emission sequence, shedding light on nuclear ...

They Glow Without Fusion—hidden Stars That May Finally Reveal Dark Matter

July 8, 2025 — Some of the faintest, coldest stars in the universe may be powered not by fusion—but by the annihilation of dark matter deep within them. These “dark dwarfs” could exist in regions like the ...

Can One Vanishing Particle Shatter String Theory — and Explain Dark Matter?

July 5, 2025 — Scientists are on the trail of a mysterious five-particle structure that could challenge one of the biggest theories in physics: string theory. This rare particle—never seen before and predicted ...

Scientists Just Recreated a 1938 Experiment That Could Rewrite Fusion History

July 9, 2025 — A groundbreaking collaboration between Los Alamos scientists and Duke University has resurrected a nearly forgotten 1938 experiment that may have quietly sparked the age of fusion energy. Arthur ...

Cozmic’s Milky Way Clones Are Cracking the Universe’s Dark Code

June 17, 2025 — Scientists have built detailed Milky Way simulations under strange new physical laws to probe dark matter, revealing how different versions of the universe might behave and helping us get closer to ...

Heavy Particles, Big Secrets: What Happened Right After the Big Bang

June 17, 2025 — Smashing atomic nuclei together at mind-bending speeds recreates the fiery conditions of the early universe and scientists are finally getting a better handle on what happens next. A sweeping new ...

Photons Collide in the Void: Quantum Simulation Creates Light out of Nothing

June 8, 2025 — Physicists have managed to simulate a strange quantum phenomenon where light appears to arise from empty space a concept that until now has only existed in theory. Using cutting-edge simulations, ...

New Theory of Gravity Brings Long-Sought Theory of Everything a Crucial Step Closer

May 5, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new quantum theory of gravity which describes gravity in a way that's compatible with the Standard Model of particle physics, opening the door to an improved ...

Are at-Home Water Tests Worth It? New Study Shows Quality Can Vary Widely

May 5, 2025 — For the cautious -- or simply curious -- homeowner, an at-home water testing kit may seem reassuring. But there are high levels of variability between test kits' abilities to detect potential ...

Researchers Develop a Novel Vote-Based Model for More Accurate Hand-Held Object Pose Estimation

May 1, 2025 — Estimating the pose of hand-held objects is a critical and challenging problem in robotics and computer vision. While leveraging multi-modal RGB and depth data is a promising solution, existing ...

Engineers Advance Toward a Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers demonstrated extremely strong nonlinear light-matter coupling in a quantum circuit. Stronger coupling enables faster quantum readout and operations, ultimately improving the accuracy of ...

Breakthrough Extends Fuel Cell Lifespan Beyond 200,000 Hours, Paving the Way for Clean Long-Haul Trucking

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new catalyst design capable of pushing the projected fuel cell catalyst lifespans to 200,000 hours. The research marks a significant step toward the widespread adoption ...

Physicists Uncover Hidden Order in the Quantum World Through Deconfined Quantum Critical Points

Apr. 25, 2025 — A recent study has unraveled some of the secrets concealed within the entangled web of quantum ...

Scientists Uncover Quantum Surprise: Matter Mediates Ultrastrong Coupling Between Light Particles

Apr. 18, 2025 — A team of researchers has developed a new way to control light interactions using a specially engineered structure called a 3D photonic-crystal cavity that could enable transformative advancements in ...

'Cosmic Radio' Could Find Dark Matter in 15 Years

Apr. 16, 2025 — Scientists have designed a 'cosmic radio' detector which could discover dark matter in 15 ...

Scientists Observe Exotic Quantum Phase Once Thought Impossible

Apr. 11, 2025 — A team of researchers reported the first direct observation of a surprising quantum phenomenon predicted over half a century ago known as a superradiant phase transition, which occurs when two groups ...

Decarbonization Improves Energy Security for Most Countries

Apr. 9, 2025 — Researchers analyzed trade-related risks to energy security across 1,092 scenarios for cutting carbon emissions by 2060. They found that swapping out dependence on imported fossil fuels for increased ...

Study Tracks Chromium Chemistry in Irradiated Molten Salts

Apr. 2, 2025 — Chemists report that radiation-induced chemical reactions may help mitigate the corrosion of metals in a new type of nuclear reactor cooled by molten ...

Scientists Merge Two 'Impossible' Materials Into New Artificial Structure

Apr. 2, 2025 — An international team has merged two lab-synthesized materials into a synthetic quantum structure once thought impossible to exist and produced an exotic structure expected to provide insights that ...

Unlocking the Potential of the Heavy Atom Effect in Metal Clusters

Mar. 26, 2025 — A novel method to improve the photoluminescent efficiency of metal clusters has been developed -- which could potentially be used in applications such as bioimaging or display ...

Gas Injection Setup in New Fusion System Is Guided by Public-Private Research

Mar. 25, 2025 — Researchers have determined that six gas valves provide the best protection against plasma disruptions in SPARC, a next-generation, experimental fusion system. By refining the setup for the fusion ...