Antimatter is not known for being easy to get ahold of . That's part of why these particles remain so cryptic. But recently, a team of physicists at Northwestern University managed to trap a single antimatter particle for months. Cooling it to temperatures near absolute zero, they could control its quantum states with great precision without even touching it. The experiment, published in Physical Review Letters represents a breakthrough in our understanding of one of the great mysteries of physics.

Is It Even Possible to Understand Quantum Mechanics? Common sense is of no help in studying reality at the atomic scale. A big problem with physics is that it's invented by humans. We see stuff around us and use our observations to build a mental model of the world. Children do this, and of course physicists keep right on doing it.

How a tiny little electronic switch sparked the computer revolution. Last week I revealed the sneaky physics behind the " joule thief," an electrical circuit that lets you squeeze more energy out of seemingly dead batteries. The key, it turned out, was a clever pairing of a transformer and a transistor. But the transistor deserves its own headline, because it's maybe only the most important invention of the 20th century. Life would be completely different without transistors.

Recent works proposed amortizing the cost by learning generalized wave functions across different structures and compounds instead of solving each problem independently.

Do quantum computers offer a way to vastly improve agriculture? As quantum computers continue to advance, identifying problems they can solve faster than the world's best conventional computers is becoming increasingly important - but it turns out that a key task held up as a future goal by quantum proponents may not need a quantum computer at all. The task in question involves a molecule called FeMoco, which plays a vital role in making life on Earth possible. That is because it is part of the process of nitrogen fixation, in which microbes convert atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, making it biologically accessible to most other living organisms. How exactly FeMoco works during this process is complicated and not fully understood, but if we could crack it and replicate it on an industrial scale, it could drastically cut the energy involved in producing fertilisers, potentially leading to a boost in crop yields.

How Does the Hive Mind Work in? The "Joining" seems to connect people via radio waves. Let's dig into the physics at play. Carol Sturka (left) and her chaperone," Zosia, in the Apple TV show . You know what's great about a show like?

Welcome back to In the Loop, new twice-weekly newsletter about AI. If you're reading this in your browser, why not subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox? Last month, I interviewed Trump's Energy Secretary Chris Wright for TIME's Person of the Year feature: The Architects of AI . Wright, who came from the private sector, has now staked much of his legacy on AI acceleration. In our interview, he highlighted AI's role in advancing crucial scientific research and downplayed climate risks.

From a particle smasher encircling the moon to an "impossible" laser, five scientists reveal the experiments they would run in a world powered purely by imagination In physics, breakthroughs are rare. Experiments are slow, expensive and often end up refining, rather than rewriting, our understanding of the universe. But what if the only constraint on scientific ambition were imagination? We asked five physicists to describe the kind of experiment they would do if they didn't have to worry about budgets, engineering limitations or political realities. Not because we expect any of it to happen soon - though in a few cases, momentum is building - but because it is revealing to see where their minds go when the usual boundaries are stripped away. One researcher wants to launch radio telescopes deep into space to probe dark matter with cosmic energy flashes.