In Historic First, Einstein’s Gravitational Waves Detected DirectlyWASHINGTON – Gravitational waves, the cosmic ripples that distort space-time itself, have been directly detected for the first time. In a highly anticipated announcement today (Feb. 11), researchers affiliated with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) reported the detection of gravitational waves.

Periodic table to gain four new elements – CNN.comElements 113, 115, 117 and 118 have formally been recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the U.S.-based world authority on chemistry. The organization’s announcement on December 30 means the seventh row of the periodic table is finally complete.

Discovery of a new class of particles at the LHCThe LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has reported the discovery of a class of particles known as pentaquarks. The collaboration has submitted today a paper reporting these findings to the journal Physical Review Letters. “The pentaquark is not just any new particle,” said LHCb spokesperson Guy Wilkinson.

Young black hole had monstrous growth spurtZhaoyu Li/SHAO A black hole that grew to gargantuan size in the Universe’s first billion years is by far the largest yet spotted from such an early date, researchers have announced. The object, discovered by astronomers in 2013, is 12 billion times as massive as the Sun, and six times greater than its largest-known contemporaries.

Big Bang breakthrough announced; gravity waves detected(CNN) — There’s no way for us to know exactly what happened some 13.8 billion years ago, when our universe burst onto the scene. But scientists announced Monday a breakthrough in understanding how our world as we know it came to be.

Antarctic Experiment Possibly Detects Particles from Another GalaxyI don’t get to write hyperbolic science fiction titles very often, but I couldn’t resist this one. Even if it’s not entirely accurate; in reality the experiment only most likely saw invading neutrinos from another galaxy. But it seems like they probably did. And they used faster-than-light travel to find…

Sun’s almost perfectly round shape baffles scientistsThe sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width of a human hair.

Dark-matter filament spotted – physicsworld.comPhysicists claim to have reliably detected a mammoth filament of dark matter stretching between two galaxy clusters, for the first time. If the detection is bona fide, it could be one of the best confirmations yet of the “standard model” of the universe’s evolution, the so-called lambda cold-dark-matter (ΛCDM) model.

Chinese Physicists Smash Distance Record For Teleportation – Technology ReviewTeleportation is the extraordinary ability to transfer objects from one location to another without travelling through the intervening space. The idea is not that the physical object is teleported but the information that describes it. This can then be applied to a similar object in a new location which effectively takes on the new identity.

Particle Physicists Chasing Ghosts – Science NewsPROVIDENCE, R.I. - Two experiments on different continents have found hints that particles called neutrinos can shape-shift in an unexpected way. This behavior may be the key to understanding why these particles are so weird, says neutrino physicist Jennifer Raaf of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., the nation’s largest particle physics lab.