Atomic clocks have long been the gold standard for measuring time and frequency. Among them, optical clocks—using atoms like strontium or aluminum—have reached staggering levels of accuracy, with ...

Scientists have taken another giant step towards building the most precise clock ever imagined—one that could display not only the passage of time, but shifting rules of nature itself. An ...

In a perspective article recurrently published in the National Science Review, Dr Xin Tong (Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and his ...

A fluorite crystal containing atoms of the radioactive element thorium-229. It was used to precisely measure the absorption spectrum of atomic nuclei at the National Metrology Institute of Germany ...

A recent study published in Nature details a significant advancement in the creation of practical nuclear clocks. Researchers have devised a new technique to observe the thorium-229 nucleus's "ticking ...

Last year, a UCLA-led team accomplished something scientists have been trying to do for 50 years. They made radioactive thorium nuclei absorb and emit photons like electrons in an atom do. This ...

The Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

For nearly a century, scientists around the world have been searching for dark matter—an invisible substance believed to make up about 80% of the universe's mass and needed to explain a variety of ...