This week, see scientifically informed art in New York, discover our atomic past and wrap your mind round calculus with the help of some bad drawings

We can't find any trace of cosmic dark matter – perhaps because our models of the early universe are missing a crucial piece, says astrophysicist Dan Hooper

A 2016 experiment pointed towards the existence of an undiscovered force of nature. Now researchers say they've seen a second sign

A sophisticated computer simulation of the universe, approximately 1 billion light years across, is modelling tens of thousands of galaxies

When lead is quickly brought to extremely high pressures using 160 laser beams, it suddenly becomes 250 times stronger – and then it explodes

Game theory helps calculate the probabilities of an outcome in adversarial situations, and we use several games as models – but now there’s one that can cover many situations

The particle physics discoveries have dried up but in politically uncertain times CERN's cooperative model is an example to the world, says its chief Fabiola Gianotti

We have a refined estimate for the mass of the neutrino, the most abundant massive particle in the Universe: its mass is 500,000 times less than an electron

A statistical technique called multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) correctly predicted the last UK election when other polls failed. This is how it works

Their unique blend of electric and magnetic properties was long thought impossible. Now multiferroics are shaking up fields from dark matter hunting to finding cancer

The cosmos is stranger than we ever imagined and new bubbles of space-time may pop up and grow continuously with no beginning or end, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

The defining feature of a crystal is that it is made from regular, repeating blocks, but a chance discovery in an old German book has turned that view on its head

Amazon has combined three types of quantum computing processors from D-Wave Systems, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing into a cloud service to test quantum algorithms

Entropy is the physicist’s magic word, invoked to answer to some of the biggest questions in cosmology. Yet a quantum rethink may be needed to tell us what it actually is

The English founded Jamestown, Virginia in the 17th century to search for gold. They didn’t find much, but that wasn’t for lack of effort or scientific skill

Join Michael De Podesta as he explains how he made the world’s most precise thermometer – and demonstrates its principle live on stage

Machine-learning algorithms are being used to tackle the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture, one of the fiendishly difficult Millennium Prize Problems

Schrödinger's dead-and-alive cat embodies the uncertainty of the quantum world. But whether parallel realities truly exist is a question less of science than belief

A rigorous randomised trial has put to bed the idea that tapping or flicking a can of beer makes bubbles come to the top and prevents the liquid fizzing out

Even a total vacuum is full of strange quantum fluctuations, which have now been caught making heat leap across empty space for the first time

Physicists are finally getting their heads round what information truly is – and using it to gain new insights into life, the universe and, well… everything

Google's Sycamore quantum computer, which recently demonstrated its dominance over ordinary computers, is now breaking records in quantum chemistry

Time travel brings up paradoxes that break the laws of physics, but multiple similar timelines running parallel to one another could get around this

A relatively small quantum computer has broken a number-factoring record, which may one day threaten data encryption methods that rely on factoring large numbers

It certainly wasn’t big, and probably didn’t bang – and the surprises in the conventional story of the universe's origins don’t end there

Google has put the algorithm it used to achieve quantum supremacy to work. It generated verifiably random numbers, which could be used one day in encryption or lotteries

Science-fiction sitcom Rick and Morty is back for season four and the hapless duo are up to their usual intergalactic tricks. But how realistic is the show's use of obscure scientific concepts and futuristic technology?

Dark energy dominates the universe, and could lead it to a cold, bleak end. But that's not to say we have much clue what it is or how it works

Graphene particles that seed ice formation in water only need to be 8 square nanometres to kick-start the freezing process – any smaller and they can stop ice forming

The 2010s saw huge advancements across science and technology. Relive the best moments with our definitive ranking of the decade

The universe’s most common element could also be its most wondrous. Two different groups of researchers say they've made it - but can either claim withstand scrutiny?

There is no law of physics dictating that dark matter and dark energy can’t be connected, and it is natural to wonder about it, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

The US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani has raised fears of nuclear conflict, but Iran has been on the road to building nuclear weapons for some time

Mathematicians have come up with a way to explore strange 3D spaces that could be related to the shape of the universe

A NASA science balloon picked up two high-energy particles and a new analysis reveals that they can't be explained by the standard model of particle physics

A chemical bond between two metal atoms has been filmed breaking and forming for the first time – something scientists say they only dreamed of seeing

A molecule shaped like a bow tie changes colour in the presence of toxic chemicals, which could make it useful for monitoring air

In everyday life, causes always precede effects. But new experiments suggests that no such restriction applies in the quantum world

Baristas normally aim to grind coffee finely to maximise surface area and extract the most coffee compounds, but a mathematical analysis has found that coarse grounds are better as they reduce clogging

It’s the ultimate scientific quest – to understand everything that there is. But the closer we get, the further away it seems. Can we ever get to grips with the true nature of reality?

What our senses allow us to experience may not reflect what actually exists. It may be a creation of our own consciousness, or a computer simulation designed by superintelligent beings

A glass bead has been brought down to its coldest possible quantum state using a new method that may one day allow us to observe an object in two places at once

A basic rule of quantum physics is that knowing too much about an experiment will break quantum interference, but now physicists have discovered a way to bend that rule

In a universe that unthinkingly follows the rules, human agency is an anomaly. Can physics ever make sense of our power to change the physical world at will?

A communications network secured by the laws of quantum physics would be unhackable, but building one requires a component called a quantum memory, which is still being developed

This week, hide behind the sofa from mind-altering plants, listen and learn from technologies past and find out how the world is underpinned by numbers

Brian Greene's new book argues that life is rare and extraordinary, probably transient, and that in the search for purpose, the only significant answers are ones we create  

A difference in the properties of matter and antimatter could help explain our universe – but a property called the Lamb shift is similar in particles of both

Why is there something rather than nothing? We’re finally making enough antimatter to extract an answer – and it might reveal the dark side of the universe too

A lightweight liquid metal alloy that is less dense than water could be used to make exoskeletons and transformable flexible robots