At the Columbia Plasma Physics Lab, researchers are tackling one of the most pressing challenges in creating clean energy: making nuclear fusion a viable power source. Unlike nuclear fission—the type ...

This article is part of an occasional Nature series in which we profile scientists with unusual career histories or outside interests. Jenny Hoffman made a last-minute decision to launch a new attempt ...

Physics at the smallest scales is a challenge of observation: Particles are often fleeting, and the forces that govern their behavior are nearly imperceptible. But now, by exploiting decades-old data ...