Science

Neutrinos rarely interact with normal matterShutterstock / betibup33 Notoriously ghostly particles called neutrinos may have revealed a crack in our understanding of all the particles and forces in the universe. The standard model of particle physics, which catalogues all the particles and forces we know to exist, is one of the biggest successes of modern physics, but physicists have also spent decades trying to break it. That is because it has enough flaws – notably, it doesn’t connect gravity to any of the three other fundamental forces – for researchers to suspect that they must formulate another, better model. If the standard model cracks under a stress test, that would point to where we should start building this next model. Francesca Dordei at the Italian Na...

Morning on the frozen Chadar River. Porters prepare for the day’s trek. Courtesy of Jigmat Lundup Every winter in the Ladakh region in northwest India, the two roads that connect the small villages in the Zanskar Valley with the rest of the country close, overwhelmed by snow. But for centuries, locals have had a workaround: a road of ice formed by the frozen Chadar River. A week-long trek in frozen temperatures connects them to the outside world. A new collaborative photo-essay, “The Feel of Climate Change,” explores this world of ice porters on the Chadar, and how this ancient way of life is rapidly changing.  Climate change is destabilizing the river’s freezing patterns, and development is bringing tourism and resources to this long-isolated region. Wealthy adventure tourists are t...

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer is winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award for the best science fiction novel of the year “Come to bed, Mouse. I know how to cheer you up,” he says. “I’m not brooding,” Annie says. “You sure?” “Fairly sure.” She is fresh from her shower, rubbing lotion into her legs. Her dark hair hangs in wet clumps along one side of her neck, and she has deliberately left the belt of her robe undone, knowing he can take a peek from the bedroom via the mirror. “This is still about your tune- up, isn’t it?” he says. “Forget about it.” “The whole thing’s degrading,” she says, and sees it’s the right angle. He enjoys a degree of humiliation. “Did you see your normal tech?” he asks. “Yes. Jacobson.” She taps off the bathroom light a...

A smooth cacio e pepe pasta sauce can be hard to achieveBrent Hofacker/Alamy Scientists’ new recipes for a classic pasta dish and boiled eggs were among the most talked-about science stories of 2025, provoking delight and fury in equal measure. In January, Ivan Di Terlizzi at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany and his colleagues reported their analysis of how to make a perfect cacio e pepe pasta sauce, a silky emulsion of black pepper, pecorino cheese and water that is famously difficult to get smooth without clumps. The secret, according to the team, is to add a dash of cornstarch. This finding was based on the meticulous testing of hundreds of different sauces with minor differences in the proportions of cheese, starch and wat...

Buildings are among the world’s largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Improving how they use energy offers one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to curb climate change. Alexis Abramson, professor and dean at the Columbia Climate School, is an engineer whose research focuses on making buildings more efficient through data analytics, machine learning and smart design. By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, for example, she has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. “We still operate many buildings the way we did many decades ago,” says Abramson. “I saw it almost like a low-hanging fruit opportunity as an engineer to have impact on the system side.” The changes can be simple, such as rep...