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A highway instead of a racetrack: Strong coupling of light and sound in an optical fiber
Science News

A highway instead of a racetrack: Strong coupling of light and sound in an optical fiber

For the first time, scientists have achieved strong coupling between light and long-lived acoustic vibrations in an optical fiber. Optical fibers are used in both classical telecommunications and quantum communication and could serve not only as connections between computing nodes but also as quantum processors themselves in the future. The results, published in Nature Physics, pave the way for new technologies in quantum signal processing.

📅 2026-10-16 21:20:01    •    Phys.org
Archaeologists discover the oldest dwelling in the Western Hemisphere at a 13,800-year-old site in Alaska
Science News

Archaeologists discover the oldest dwelling in the Western Hemisphere at a 13,800-year-old site in Alaska

Archaeologists digging at a 13,800-year-old site in interior Alaska have unearthed thousands of artifacts and fossils, including what may be the bones of the earliest domesticated dogs in the Americas, the earliest needles and dwellings in the Western Hemisphere, and stone tools that reveal cultural connections across the Bering Land Bridge.At a site called Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ (which means "They Were There" in the Alaska Native Athabascan language), about 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Fairbanks, archaeologists have excavated an encampment that some of the first people to settle in North America used off and on for a millennium. Shégˊ Xdaltthˊíˊ is located in eastern Beringia, the geogra...

📅 2026-10-16 20:54:58    •    Live Science
Physicists froze a 'necklace' of atoms — and witnessed a quantum phenomenon predicted 100 years ago
Science News

Physicists froze a 'necklace' of atoms — and witnessed a quantum phenomenon predicted 100 years ago

"Necklaces" of ultracold atoms have provided new evidence to support a nearly 100-year-old quantum theory.In 1931, physicists were trying to use quantum mechanics to explain why some materials are magnetic. Then, a young physicist named Hans Bethe looked at a single row of electrons. Each electron's spin can point up or down. Bethe worked out the math for how such a row behaves and found that if a few spins in the row flip, they can stick together and travel down the row as a single unit.Decades later, physicists found that Bethe's method also works for larger particles moving along a line, such as atoms. If those particles attract each other, the math predicts they will bind into clusters c...

📅 2026-10-16 20:45:06    •    Live Science
Judging strangers' preferences may actually be easier when they're less like our own
Science News

Judging strangers' preferences may actually be easier when they're less like our own

Researchers already know that humans have a tendency to use egocentric anchoring—a cognitive bias in which people use their own preferences, beliefs and perspectives as a mental starting point (or anchor) to understand or predict what another person thinks, feels or prefers. This is not necessarily a sign of selfishness or self-importance, but a way for us to better understand others.

📅 2026-10-16 20:40:02    •    Phys.org
Climate warming can slow how tree roots feed soil microbes
Science News

Climate warming can slow how tree roots feed soil microbes

A plant's roots do much of their work out of sight, pulling in water and nutrients and holding the plant in place. That makes it hard to see how plants respond when conditions underground change, and how a warming climate affects them. New Dartmouth-led studies look at the strategies plants use below the surface to adapt and survive.

📅 2026-10-16 19:40:01    •    Phys.org