This is how a 'fuzzy' universe may have looked

Scientists have found that the early universe, and the very first galaxies, would have looked very different depending on the nature of dark matter. For the first time, the team has simulated what early galaxy formation would have looked like if dark matter were ''fuzzy,'' rather than cold or warm.

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Exoplanets to medical tests: Tiny frequency devices open up new applications

Accurately measuring frequencies of light is required for timekeeping and many science experiments and technologies. Frequency combs, invented in 2000, are used to complete these measurements. However, most of them are large and cumbersome. In 2009, researchers developed a way to make much smaller combs, but they came with their own challenges. New research finds that a novel way of generating frequency combs could address these challenges, leading to compact frequency combs with untold applications.

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Inventing the world's strongest silver

A team of scientists has made the strongest silver ever — 42 percent stronger than the previous world record. It's part of a discovery of a new mechanism at the nanoscale that can create metals much stronger than any ever made before — while not losing electrical conductivity.

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Quantum vacuum: Less than zero energy

According to quantum physics, energy can be 'borrowed' — at least for some time. Energies lower than zero are possible, much like a bank account that can be overdrawn. There are, however, certain restrictions to that. Scientists have now shown that these restrictions are very fundamental properties of our universe and must be true for various possible quantum theories.

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2000 atoms in two places at once

The quantum superposition principle has been tested on a scale as never before in a new study. Hot, complex molecules composed of nearly two thousand atoms were brought into a quantum superposition and made to interfere. By confirming this phenomenon — 'the heart of quantum mechanics', in Richard Feynman's words — on a new mass scale, improved constraints on alternative theories to quantum mechanics have been placed.

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