Space Exploration
Record-Breaking Voyager Spacecraft Begin to Power Down
The pioneering probes are still running after nearly 45 years in space, but they will soon lose some of their instruments
Stories by Tim Folger
Black Holes
Tiny Gravitational-Wave Detector Could Search Anywhere in the Sky
A much smaller and more reproducible version of LIGO could transform gravitational-wave astronomy
Quantum Physics
Quantum Gravity in the Lab
Physicists attempting to unify the theories of gravity and quantum mechanics have long thought practical experiments were out of reach, but new proposals offer a chance to test the quantum nature of gravity on a tabletop...
Quantum Physics
How Does the Quantum World Cross Over?
The universe according to quantum mechanics is strange and probabilistic, but our everyday reality seems nailed down. New experiments aim to probe where—and why—one realm passes into the other...
The Sciences
The Race to Replace the Kilogram
The long-running effort to ditch the decaying, 19th-century artifact that defines the kilogram nears its conclusion
Computing
The Race to Build the Unhackable Network
Quantum computers will render today's cryptographic methods obsolete. What happens then?
Space & Physics
Can Time Travelers Reach the Past via Wormholes?
Astronauts already skip ahead in time, but the laws of physics seem to forbid going backward—or do they?
Cognition
Can We Keep Getting Smarter?
Ever rising IQ scores suggest that future generations will make us seem like dimwits in comparison
Mind & Brain
Will We Continue to Get Smarter? The Flynn Effect Says Yes
Ever-rising IQ scores suggest that future generations will make us seem like dimwits in comparison
The Sciences
Waiting for the Higgs
Even as the last protons spin through the most successful particle accelerator in history, physicists hope to conjure one final triumph
Space & Physics
Contact: The Day After
If we are ever going to pick up a signal from E.T., it is going to happen soon, astronomers say. And we already have a good idea how events will play out
