New experimental tools open fresh paths across science

Summary

The CHIME radio telescope detected faint hydrogen emission from roughly 9 billion years ago using its own observations, demonstrating a long-sought mapping technique. Hydrogen across cosmic time can reveal how matter is distributed and how the universe expanded, providing a new probe of dark energy.

Why it matters

A workable hydrogen map could give cosmologists an independent way to challenge the leading explanation for the universe's accelerating expansion.

Summary

Researchers identified short-lived intermediate materials that form while chemical ingredients are heated and are often missed by conventional methods. They also found a new atomic form of bismuth vanadate whose unusual interaction with light could affect solar fuels, catalysts, and electronics.

Why it matters

Transient materials may provide a largely unexplored route to better energy technologies that standard synthesis methods overlook.

Summary

Scientists created and directly observed Bethe strings, unusual quantum states predicted by Hans Bethe in 1931. In an ultracold cesium gas, groups of atoms formed nonchemical bound clusters, including clusters of six or more particles that survived collisions.

Why it matters

Bethe strings turn a long-standing theoretical construct into an experimental tool for studying strongly interacting quantum matter.