The “lead” of a pencil is actually made of a substance called graphite which is made of carbon atoms. The picture shows a close-up of one carbon atom. A hydrogen atom has one proton as the nucleus and ...

Look around you (or, if you’re sight impaired, touch something). Everything solid, liquid, or gas that you see and feel is made of matter. We sometimes call it “normal” matter, though with dark matter ...

The universe was too hot for atoms to form immediately after the Big Bang. Hydrogen formed about 3 minutes after the Big Bang. Helium formed in smaller amounts than hydrogen. Neutral atoms formed ...

For surfers, it's not enough just to wait for the right wave: they still have to know how to catch it. As it turns out, one challenge faced by surfers also applies to protons. An experiment recently ...

For the first time, researchers have reported a 3D metal-organic framework (MOF) that can conduct both electrons and protons (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c13792). Materials mixing ...

A balloon debate at the FRPT 2022 conference pondered which particle offers most promise for clinical implementation of FLASH radiotherapy Debating particles Jean Bourhis, Billy Loo and John ...

Scientists have used high-energy particle collisions to peer inside protons, the particles that sit inside the nuclei of all atoms. This has revealed for the first time that quarks and gluons, the ...