Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announces most comprehensive hunt for alien life.

Immediately after the Big Bang, before the first stars in the Universe ever formed, the Universe consisted of hydrogen (element #1), helium (element #2), and pretty much nothing else. Despite originating from an incredibly hot, dense state, arbitrarily heavy elements weren't created early on the same way they're made today in stars.

Not unlike the fading tones of a ringing crystal goblet, the spacetime continuum andthe universe itself may be oscillating through billions of years of cosmic time, say two U.S. physicists. In a paper recently published in The Astronomical Journal, physicists Harry Ringermacher and Lawrence Mead at the University of Southern Mississippi [...]

A good introduction to the development of the universe that approaches it through the leading theoretical hypotheses in cosmological research. Knowledge of some advanced maths, quantum/relativistic theory are required for some parts, but I feel the majority of the key points can be taken in at an undergrads level of knowledge.

When it comes to studying particles that zip through matter as though it weren’t even there, you use every method you can think of.

The bizarre nature of reality as laid out by quantum theory has survived another test, with scientists performing a famous experiment and proving that reality does not exist until it is measured. Physicists at The Australian National University (ANU) have conducted John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, which involves a moving object that is given the choice to act like a particle or a wave. Wheeler's experiment then asks - at which point does the object decide?

Through the months of May, June, and July of 2015, TheBestSchools.org is hosting an intensive Dialogue on the Nature of Science between Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer. During the second month, June, the focus will be on mental action at a distance.

With the advent of ever-more-accurate clocks, keeping good time is becoming surprisingly complicated.

Quantum mechanics says not merely that the world is probabilistic, but that it uses rules of probability that no science fiction writer would have had the imagination to invent...

When Henri met Albert the stars didn’t quite align; nor did their clocks. Jimena Canales, historian of science, tells Joe Gelonesi about her discovery of an explosive 20th century debate that changed our view of time and destroyed a reputation.

After a decade, Peter Woit still thinks string theory is a gory mess.

General relativity, the theory of gravity Albert Einstein published 100 years ago, is one of the most successful theories we have. It has passed every experimental test; every observation from astronomy is consistent with its predictions.... Yet most researchers think general relativity is wrong.

New research in theoretical physics shows that black holes aren't the ruthless killers we've made them out to be, but instead benign--if imperfect--hologram generators. The world could have been captured by a black hole, and we wouldn't even notice, according to a new theoretical perspective.

What if the universe is not just matter and energy, but bits of information?

What would intelligent life look like in the frigid, final era of the Universe?

Through the months of May, June, and July of 2015, TheBestSchools.org is hosting an intensive dialogue on the nature of science between Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer. This first month, the focus is on materialism in science.

Physicists are beginning to unravel the mysteries of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, particles accelerated by the most powerful forces in the universe.

Cosmology has been on a long, hot streak, racking up one imaginative and scientific triumph after another. Can it go on?

The 'holographic principle,' the idea that a universe with gravity can be described by a quantum field theory in fewer dimensions, has been used for years as a mathematical tool in strange curved spaces. New results suggest that the holographic principle also holds in flat spaces. Our own universe could in fact be two dimensional and only appear three dimensional -- just like a hologram.

It is only a matter of time before our Universe goes black, cold and dies. Must this be the end of the road for life?