Is our universe just one of many? While the concept is bizarre, it's a real possibility, according to scientists who have devised the first test to investigate the idea. Researchers hope to analyze data from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite to look for signals of cosmological bubble collisions that could prove the theory.

Physicists say they have found something potentially extraordinary in the haze of microwaves permeating the cosmos that was left over after the Big Bang — giant rings they said could be evidence of a universe that existed before the Big Bang roughly 13.7 billion years ago.

Recent progress has renewed enthusiasm for finding avenues to build significantly more powerful quantum computers. Laboratory efforts in the United States and in Europe are under way using a number of technologies.

The Large Hadron Collider has successfully created a "mini-Big Bang" by smashing together lead ions instead of protons. The scientists working at the enormous machine on Franco-Swiss border achieved the unique conditions on 7 November. The experiment created temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun.

Quantum hackers have performed the first 'invisible' attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack.

Scientists from China have built a device that can trap and absorb microwaves coming from all directions with a 99% absorption rate - a property that makes the device simulate, to some extent, an astrophysical black hole.

Advances in the technology have made it possible for military testers to shoot down incoming mortar rounds with land-based lasers, and military commanders are on the verge of being able to fire laser blasts from the air that could be aimed at tanks or mines.

A major hurdle in the ambitious quest to design and construct a radically new kind of quantum computer has been finding a way to manipulate the single electrons that very likely will constitute the new machines' processing components or "qubits." Princeton University's Jason Petta has discovered how to do just that -- demonstrating a method that alters the properties of a lone electron without disturbing the trillions of electrons in its immediate surroundings.

A new computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole, though the researchers are quick to point out that the experiment assumed energies a quintillion times higher than existing colliders (ex. the Large Hadron Collider).

A team of quantum physicists has taken the first steps towards using a quantum computer to predict how a chemical reaction will take place.