Nuclear Energy News

January 15, 2026

Top Headlines

An Old Jeweler’s Trick Could Change Nuclear Timekeeping

Jan. 8, 2026 A team of physicists has discovered a surprisingly simple way to build nuclear clocks using tiny amounts of rare thorium. By electroplating thorium onto steel, they achieved the same results as years of work with delicate crystals — but far more ...

Scientists Are Closing in on the Universe’s Biggest Mystery

Jan. 8, 2026 Nearly everything in the universe is made of mysterious dark matter and dark energy, yet we can’t see either of them directly. Scientists are developing detectors so sensitive they can spot particle interactions that might occur once in years or ...

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 ...

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, comparable to the pressures found deep below ...

Quantum Computers Just Simulated Physics Too Complex for Supercomputers

Nov. 19, 2025 Researchers created scalable quantum circuits capable of simulating fundamental nuclear physics on more than 100 qubits. These circuits efficiently prepare complex initial states that classical computers cannot handle. The achievement demonstrates a ...

Dark Matter Acts Surprisingly Normal in a New Cosmic Test

Nov. 16, 2025 Dark matter may be invisible, but scientists are getting closer to understanding whether it follows the same rules as everything we can see. By comparing how galaxies move through cosmic gravity wells to the depth of those wells, researchers found ...

Floating Device Turns Raindrops Into Electricity

Nov. 15, 2025 A new floating droplet electricity generator is redefining how rain can be harvested as a clean power source by using water itself as both structural support and an electrode. This nature-integrated design dramatically reduces weight and cost ...

The Universe’s First Radio Waves Could Reveal Dark Matter

Oct. 25, 2025 Researchers propose that hydrogen gas from the early Universe emitted detectable radio waves influenced by dark matter. Studying these signals, especially from the Moon’s radio-quiet environment, could reveal how dark matter clumped together ...

Princeton’s AI Reveals What Fusion Sensors Can’t See

Oct. 1, 2025 A powerful new AI tool called Diag2Diag is revolutionizing fusion research by filling in missing plasma data with synthetic yet highly detailed information. Developed by Princeton scientists and international collaborators, this system uses sensor ...

The Moon Could Finally Reveal Dark Matter

Sep. 18, 2025 Faint hydrogen signals from the cosmic Dark Ages may soon help determine the mass of dark matter particles. Simulations suggest future Moon-based observatories could distinguish between warm and cold dark matter, providing long-sought answers about ...

Scientists Just Built a Detector That Could Finally Catch Dark Matter

Sep. 10, 2025 Physicists have unveiled a new superconducting detector sensitive enough to hunt dark matter particles smaller than electrons. By capturing faint photon signals, the device pushes the search into uncharted ...

Scientists Just Found a Hidden Quantum Geometry That Warps Electrons

Sep. 5, 2025 A hidden quantum geometry that distorts electron paths has finally been observed in real materials. This “quantum metric,” once thought purely theoretical, may revolutionize electronics, superconductivity, and ultrafast ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:08am EST

New Research Challenges the Cold Dark Matter Assumption

Jan. 15, 2026 Dark matter, one of the Universe’s greatest mysteries, may have been born blazing hot instead of cold and sluggish as scientists long believed. New research shows that dark matter particles could ...

Physicists Thought This Mystery Particle Could Explain Everything. See What Happened

Jan. 12, 2026 Scientists at Fermilab’s MicroBooNE experiment have ruled out the existence of the elusive sterile neutrino, a particle proposed for decades to ...

Scientists Tried to Break Einstein’s Speed of Light Rule

Jan. 8, 2026 Einstein’s claim that the speed of light is constant has survived more than a century of scrutiny—but scientists are still daring to test it. Some theories of quantum gravity suggest light might ...

China’s “artificial Sun” Just Broke a Fusion Limit Scientists Thought Was Unbreakable

Jan. 4, 2026 Researchers using China’s “artificial sun” fusion reactor have broken through a long-standing density barrier in fusion plasma. The experiment ...

Two Unstable Atoms Are Rewriting Neutron Star Explosions

Jan. 3, 2026 Scientists have precisely measured two unstable atomic nuclei that play a crucial role in explosive X-ray bursts on neutron stars. The results reveal faster nuclear reactions than previously thought, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

JWST Spots a Strange Red Dot So Extreme Scientists Can’t Explain It

Nov. 29, 2025 The discovery of strange, ultra-red objects—especially the extreme case known as The Cliff—has pushed astronomers to propose an entirely new type of cosmic structure: black hole stars. These ...

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 ...

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 ...

Physicists Reveal a New Quantum State Where Electrons Run Wild

Nov. 16, 2025 Electrons can freeze into strange geometric crystals and then melt back into liquid-like motion under the right quantum conditions. Researchers identified how to tune these transitions and even ...

Hidden Clues in Ghostly Particles Could Explain Why We Exist

Oct. 30, 2025 In a rare global collaboration, scientists from Japan and the United States joined forces to explore one of the universe’s deepest mysteries — why anything exists at all. By combining years of ...

MIT Physicists Just Found a Way to See Inside Atoms

Oct. 26, 2025 MIT researchers have devised a new molecular technique that lets electrons probe inside atomic nuclei, replacing massive particle accelerators with a tabletop setup. By studying radium monofluoride, ...

Dark Matter May Be Lighting Up the Heart of the Milky Way

Nov. 5, 2025 Researchers using new simulations suggest that the Milky Way’s past collisions may have reshaped its dark matter core. This distorted structure could naturally explain the puzzling gamma-ray glow ...

Physicists Capture Trillion Degree Heat from the Big Bang’s Primordial Plasma

Oct. 29, 2025 Rice University researchers have captured the temperature profile of quark-gluon plasma, the ultra-hot state of matter from the dawn of the universe. By analyzing rare electron-positron emissions ...

Dark Matter Might Not Be Invisible After All. It Could Leave a Hidden Glow

Oct. 23, 2025 Researchers suggest that dark matter might subtly color light red or blue as it passes through, revealing traces of its existence. Using a network-like model of particle connections, they argue that ...

MIT Scientists Find Metals Hold Secret Atomic Patterns

Oct. 14, 2025 MIT researchers found that metals retain hidden atomic patterns once believed to vanish during manufacturing. These patterns arise from microscopic dislocations that guide atoms into preferred ...

A New Equation May Explain the Universe Without Dark Matter

Nov. 6, 2025 A new theory claims dark matter and dark energy don’t exist — they’re just side effects of the universe’s changing forces. By rethinking gravity and cosmic timelines, it could rewrite our ...

JWST May Have Found the Universe’s First Stars Powered by Dark Matter

Oct. 14, 2025 New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by ...

Scientists May Be Closing in on Dark Matter’s True Identity

Oct. 1, 2025 The LUX-ZEPLIN detector is breaking new ground in the hunt for dark matter, setting unprecedented limits on WIMP particles. Its results not only narrow the possibilities for dark matter but also open ...

Scientists Finally Capture Water’s Hidden State That’s Both Solid and Liquid

Sep. 22, 2025 Water, though familiar, still hides astonishing secrets. When squeezed into nanosized channels, it can enter a bizarre “premelting state” that is both solid and liquid at once. Using advanced NMR ...

The Surprising New Particle That Could Finally Explain Dark Matter

Sep. 25, 2025 Physicists are eyeing charged gravitinos—ultra-heavy, stable particles from supergravity theory—as possible Dark Matter candidates. Unlike axions or WIMPs, these particles carry electric charge ...

Neutrinos May Be the Hidden Force Behind Gold and Platinum

Sep. 21, 2025 When two neutron stars collide, they unleash some of the most powerful forces in the universe, creating ripples in spacetime, showers of radiation, and even the building blocks of gold and platinum. ...

New Evidence Suggests Einstein’s Cosmic Constant May Be Wrong

Nov. 4, 2025 Astronomers are rethinking one of cosmology’s biggest mysteries: dark energy. New findings show that evolving dark energy models, tied to ultra-light axion particles, may better fit the ...

Rare Einstein Cross With Extra Image Reveals Hidden Dark Matter

Sep. 17, 2025 A strange “Einstein Cross” with an extra, impossible fifth image has revealed the hidden presence of a massive dark matter halo. An international team of astronomers, including Rutgers ...

Strange Signals at Absolute Zero Hint at Dark Matter’s Secrets

Sep. 16, 2025 QROCODILE has set record-breaking sensitivity in the search for dark matter, detecting signals at energy levels once thought impossible. These results may be just the first step toward finally ...

Black Hole Explosion Could Change Everything We Know About the Universe

Sep. 11, 2025 Physicists may soon witness a cosmic fireworks show: the explosive death of a primordial black hole. Once thought to be unimaginably rare, new research suggests there’s up to a 90% chance of ...

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 ...