GoKawiil
Tech News
Researchers in Singapore have created an atomic clock capable of measuring time with unprecedented accuracy, reaching the 19th decimal place. This new device surpasses all previous records for precision in timekeeping.
Two research groups, led by Toscani De Col and by Huang, have published the first demonstrations of a working nuclear clock in Nature. Unlike atomic clocks, which track electron transitions, these devices measure energy transitions within atomic nuclei, offering a potentially more precise timekeeping method. The Toscani De Col team also showed their clock could be used to search for a candidate form of dark matter.
Atomic, a Boston-based startup founded by former Tesla employees, closed a $12.5 million Series A round led by Klass Capital and Madrona Venture Group, bringing total funding to over $15 million. The company builds AI software that simulates inventory scenarios and recommends or automates supply chain decisions, with customers including DoorDash and HelloFresh. Atomic also named longtime Tesla planning director Jeff Goodrich as CTO and third co-founder.
Researchers at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies, led by Murray Barrett, report building a lutetium-based atomic clock that outperforms previous record-holding clocks made with ytterbium, strontium and aluminum. The findings were published in Nature on September 23. The clock works by locking a laser to lutetium's atomic transition frequency, which then serves as an ultra-precise timekeeping reference.
Physicists have built an optical atomic clock based on the rare-earth element lutetium that would drift by less than one second over roughly 260 billion years, making it the most precise timekeeper reported so far. The clock measures time using the frequency of visible light absorbed by lutetium atoms. Researchers say its design is stable enough that they aim to miniaturize it for use outside the laboratory.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have built an optical atomic clock using lutetium ions that is four times more precise than the previous record-holder, a calcium-ion clock. The device would lose less than a second over roughly 260 billion years, making it the most accurate timekeeper reported to date, according to a study published in Nature on September 23.
A developer walks through optimizing a basic spin-lock implementation in C++, starting from a naive atomic exchange loop that slows dramatically under contention. Benchmarks show the naive version taking 3.14 ns uncontended but ballooning to 246 ns with four threads, driven by cache-line contention and branch mispredictions. Through iterative refinements, the author achieves a version that is 5.7 times faster and consumes 5.4 times less energy than the original.
Researchers examined a fragment of 'hiroshimaite,' fallout material from the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bombing, and identified a previously unknown alloy composed of seven elements. The discovery, imaged via scanning electron microscope, was published in Science Advances ahead of the bombing's 81st anniversary.
A photo of juvenile lobsters being reared at the UK National Lobster Hatchery before release into the wild was named a finalist for Ocean Photographer of the Year 2026. The image is part of a broader roundup of standout science photography from the past month, curated by Nature's photo team.
Standards body CGPM will vote in mid-October on ending the leap second, the periodic one-second adjustment used since 1972 to keep atomic clock time aligned with Earth's rotation. The move is being accelerated because the next adjustment could, for the first time, require subtracting rather than adding a second—a scenario computer systems have never had to handle. In its place, officials are proposing a leap hour that would only realign timescales once they drift a full 3,600 seconds apart.
A new Linux distribution called stillOS has debuted with a strong focus on simplifying onboarding for people who have never used Linux before. It uses atomic updates so the operating system and apps update automatically in the background without risking system stability, and it lets users customize their desktop without needing any technical Linux knowledge.
Ron Fowler, now 77 and hospitalized with cancer and blood clots, and his 83-year-old friend Chuck Deuschle spent years working at a Kentucky uranium-enrichment plant central to the U.S. nuclear weapons program. They later exposed how the facility and its operators hid dangerous levels of radiation and toxic chemical exposure from workers and nearby residents for decades, choosing to stay on the job and speak out rather than quit.