Will scientists ever find the final building block of nature? ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
September 23, 2026—Could newfound fundamental particles overwrite the Standard Model of physics? Plus, football causes neurodegenerative disease and astronomers find a new crater on the moon.
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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An overhead, close-up view of McGetchin Crater that was taken on December 5, 2025, by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA Goddard/Intuitive Machines/Robert Wagner
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Astronomers discovered a new crater on the moon 222 meters (728 feet) across and 43 meters (141 feet) deep. | 2 min read
Mathematicians (amateur and professional) used AI to find all 25,000 cases of one “inverse Galois problem,” solving a decades-old conundrum. | 5 min read
Is the secret to health "poop-maxxing?" Influencers on the Internet are trying to optimize their bowel movements, but what do the experts say? | 16 min podcast
A robot dog ran a marathon faster than the average human. Watch it go! | 2 min read
How much longer will the sun shine? Eventually it will run out of fuel, and here are the stages of its demise. | 5 min read
Some have proposed that AI auditors might serve as independent checks on the rapidly advancing technology. But the systems are evolving faster than the methods used to evaluate them. | 4 min read
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The Smallest Particles
In 2012, with the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the number of known elementary particles in the universe rose to 17. It was the last particle predicted by the Standard Model, theorists’ best description of nature’s fundamental bits. The model groups particles into fermions (the building blocks of matter, such as quarks) and bosons (force-carrying particles, such as photons). But can these particles be broken down further? One of science’s intractable questions: Will we ever find the smallest, final building block of nature?
Lines of investigation: The search for new fragments of reality may reveal that our understanding of elementary physics is flawed.
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String theory: The Standard Model represents particles as points and doesn’t account for their volume in physics. But what if instead of points, these bits of mass and energy are actually something else, like tiny, vibrating strings? Most elementary particles would be formed by open strings; closed strings would make up the hypothetical particles that carry the gravitational force, called gravitons. To accurately explain known physics, these strings must exist across at least 10 dimensions, a geometric structure that is assumed to be accessible only at tiny scales, and impossible to test empirically.
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Loop quantum gravity: Spacetime itself may be made of tiny loops. Woven together, these fundamental loops of gravity can mathematically account for the curvature of spacetime. "We are immersed in the gravitational field,” says Francesca Vidotto, a theoretical physicist at Western University in Ontario. “And when we try to interact with this field at the smallest possible scale, we discover that there is this quantum spacetime, like grains.”
How to test these ideas: If strings or quantum loops exist, physicists believe they would be about the size of the Planck length, which is thought to represent a physical limit to how small something can be: about 1.6 × 10–35 meter. According to quantum theory, it is impossible to measure beyond this limit because anything smaller would have physical uncertainties that would prevent it from having a definite size. To experiment close to the Planck scale, we would need a circular particle collider so large that if centered on the sun it would reach a little past the outer orbit of Neptune. This grand space accelerator won’t be possible anytime soon, but scientists are working on upgrades at the Large Hadron Collider that are slated to come online in 2030. These modifications will allow the machine to measure even more particles erupting from collisions.
Join the discussion: Do you think the fundamental particles in the Standard Model can be broken down into even more fundamental ingredients? And might scientists someday find the final building block of nature? Share your thoughts here.
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FOTOGRAFIA INC. via Getty Images
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Football and Kids
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a condition caused by repeated blows to the head. It can’t be diagnosed until the patient has died, but during their life it causes a range of frightening symptoms like cognitive dysfunction, mood issues, headaches and brain damage. It’s found in about 1 percent of the general population, but data published last month in the British Medical Journal suggests that one in four NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had CTE. Scientists are racing to find out if the children who play football—in high school and younger—might be at risk, too.
The evidence: One NIH analysis reports that about 40 percent of amateur athletes playing contact sports show brain changes that are characteristic of CTE. But a causative relationship between playing football and CTE hasn’t yet been clearly confirmed. Some studies suggest that the number of blows to the head is what increases a person’s likelihood of having CTE, but others say that having played football in high school had no impact on their brain health compared to other sports.
What the experts say: “CTE is affecting far more people than anyone wants to accept,” and while the scientific community tries to find answers for kids in football, young athletes may be exposed to harm, says Chris Nowinski, a college football player-turned-neuroscience-researcher who co-authored the new BMJ report. —Emma Gometz, Newsletter Editor
Join the Discussion: Do you think kids should be playing football given the risks to their brains? Share your thoughts here.
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There's been a lot of hype around AI. But we must remain skeptical. | MIT Technology Review ($)
A prominent hacking group says it has breached the FBI's internal site and acquired personal data on all of the agency's employees. | 404 Media
An internet conspiracy theory of "medbeds" is killing people. Here's how it all started. | Slate
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Thank you so much to all readers who shared some lovely (and amazing) stories about your pets! One person's dog taught itself to climb trees (!), one dog who remembered which human gave it a specific ball (what a sweetie), and several dogs with an uncanny sense of language. Read them all and share yours here.
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—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
P.S. If this newsletter made you think, laugh or spiral into an existential Google search, consider forwarding it to a friend. We’d love to have them here.
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