In 2008, a team of UCLA-led scientists proposed a scheme to use a laser to excite the nucleus of thorium atoms to realize extremely accurate, portable clocks. Last year, they realized this ...

A collaboration between researchers in the US and Germany has made a major breakthrough in optical nuclear clocks, achieving laser-based excitation of Thoria-229 in a non-transparent host material.

This month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago is scheduled to announce whether the hands of its famous Doomsday Clock will move closer to midnight. It feels like a ...

Familiar risks to human existence such as nuclear weapons and climate change were cited by the scientists, along with new ...