World's First Nuclear Clocks Built, Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is 12 Billion Years Old

World's first nuclear clocks tick using thorium-229 nuclei Teams from TU Wien and Tsinghua University independently demonstrated the first nuclear clocks, which use laser transitions in the thorium-229 nucleus rather than atomic electrons. The clocks are less sensitive to external disturbances than atomic clocks and could eventually detect ultralight dark matter particles. 12

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is 12 billion years old, study finds Using JWST and ALMA, astronomers measured carbon isotopes and heavy water in comet 3I/ATLAS, revealing it formed about 12 billion years ago — far older than the 4.5-billion-year-old Solar System. Its deuterium abundance is 30 times higher than local comets, suggesting an extremely cold birthplace. 345

Dormant black hole 6 billion solar masses found at record distance Using JWST stellar dynamics, astronomers measured a dormant supermassive black hole of 6 billion solar masses in galaxy MRG-M0138, seen when the universe was 3 billion years old. This is the most distant dormant black hole ever weighed, 15 times farther than the previous record. 6

Quantum control protocols reverse the perceived arrow of time Researchers at Los Alamos reported in Physical Review X that quantum control techniques can suppress or invert a quantum system's apparent time direction. They demonstrated a measurement-powered engine that extracts energy from monitoring a quantum system. 7

AI pipeline Germinal designs functional antibodies with few tests Published in Nature Biotechnology, the Germinal generative pipeline designs antibodies against specific epitopes with nanomolar affinities, requiring only 43–101 designs per target. It co-optimizes structure and sequence using a protein language model and was validated on four diverse targets. 8

Ancient neurons controlling attention discovered in mice Johns Hopkins researchers identified neurons in an evolutionarily ancient brain region that suppress distractions and direct focus. The discovery, in a region present in all vertebrates, could lead to more targeted ADHD treatments. 9

Designer electrical synapses edit brain circuits in living mice A new technique called LinCx uses engineered connexin proteins to create electrical synapses in living mice, altering neural activity and behavior without external stimulation. The approach offers a natural way to probe circuit function. 10

Cardiac aging traced to fading regulator PRDM16 in heart cells A single-nucleus atlas of 442,239 human heart nuclei from fetal to old age identified PRDM16 as a key regulator lost with aging. Knockdown of PRDM16 induced senescence-like phenotypes in cardiomyocytes, while overexpression in aged mice reversed some effects. 11

High-energy hydrogen radicals enable efficient urea electrosynthesis A CuBi catalyst coated with an ionic liquid generates high-energy H· radicals that drive CO₂ and N₂ co-reduction to urea with 73% Faradaic efficiency and 124.7 μmol cm⁻² h⁻¹ production rate, bypassing conventional hydrogen evolution suppression. 12

Chiral gravitons reveal emergent partons in quantum Hall systems Using circularly polarized light scattering, researchers observed multiple chiral graviton modes at filling factors 2/7 and 2/9, confirming the existence of high-energy partons — fractionalized electron states — in fractional quantum Hall liquids. 13

Dark dimension may link dark energy and dark matter, theorists propose Recent DESI data showing dark energy may be weakening over time has revived interest in models where dark energy and dark matter are physically connected. A proposed 'dark dimension' could unify the two great unknowns. 14

NASA's Roman Space Telescope arrives in Florida for summer launch The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch this summer. It will survey dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared galaxies. 15

Open-access database of 50,000 chemistry experiments accelerates drug discovery University of Michigan researchers created the largest open database of chemical reactions, testing thousands of conditions for carbon-nitrogen bond formation. The dataset is designed to train AI models for faster drug development. 16

JWST decodes Pink Planet GJ504b's salt clouds and ancient age JWST obtained the first detailed spectrum of GJ504b, revealing water, methane, CO₂, ammonia, and salt clouds. The object is 2.5–4 billion years old — far older than previous estimates — and sits at the boundary between giant planet and brown dwarf. 17