Building the world’s first graviton detector
Business Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Jan-2026 15:11 ET (16-Jan-2026 20:11 GMT/UTC)
Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology and Yale University are initiating a first-of-its-kind experiment designed to detect gravitons, the hypothesized quantum building blocks of gravity. Supported by the W. M. Keck Foundation, the project marks a shift from theory to experiment in the study of quantum gravity.
Rice’s Naomi Halas, Peter Nordlander and Hossein Robajatzi have been awarded the 2026 Hill Prize in Engineering for their work advancing light-driven technologies for sustainable ammonia synthesis.
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences has gone in this eighteenth edition to physicists Allan MacDonald (The University of Texas at Austin) and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) for their discoveries concerning the “magic angle” that allows the behavior of new materials to be transformed and controlled. What the committee terms the “pioneering” insights of the two researchers have provided both the theoretical foundation and experimental validation of a whole new field, now known as twistronics, where superconductivity, magnetism and other target properties can be obtained by rotating new materials such as graphene.
The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Lee Ho Seong) has developed a key materials technology that accelerates the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs)—next-generation batteries designed to intrinsically eliminate the risks of fire and explosion.
The Emerging Material Metrology Group at KRISS demonstrated ultra-dense, large-area solid electrolyte membranes by applying a method that coats solid electrolyte powders with multifunctional compounds, reducing production costs to one-tenth of conventional levels.