A team of scientists have measured a bizarre effect in quantum physics, in which individual particles of light are said to have been “squeezed” – an achievement which at least one textbook had written off as hopeless.

An international team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge have detected the most distant clouds of star-forming gas yet found in normal galaxies in the early Universe – less than one billion years after the Big Bang. The new observations will allow astronomers to start to see how the first galaxies were built up and how they cleared the cosmic fog during the era of reionisation. This is the first time that such galaxies have been seen as more than just faint blobs.

Researchers have identified a material that behaves as a conductor and an insulator at the same time, challenging current understanding of how materials behave, and pointing to a new type of insulating state.

The ‘world’s largest IT project’ — a system with the power of one hundred million home computers — may help to unravel many of the mysteries of our universe: how it began, how it developed and whether humanity is alone in the cosmos.

Astronomers have partially solved an epic whodunit: what kills galaxies so that they can no longer produce new stars?

Astronomers have detected wildly changing temperatures on a super Earth – the first time any atmospheric variability has been observed on a rocky planet outside the solar system – and believe it could be due to huge amounts of volcanic activity, further adding to the mystery of what had been nicknamed the ‘diamond planet’.

Topping out event for pioneering new building which will provide a home for blue skies thinking and interaction with industry.

New understanding of the nature of electromagnetism could lead to antennas small enough to fit on computer chips – the ‘last frontier’ of semiconductor design – and could help identify the points where theories of classical electromagnetism and quantum mechanics overlap.

After two years of intense maintenance and consolidation, and several months of preparation for restart, the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, is back in operation after a major upgrade.

The causes of a hitherto mysterious process that could enhance the power of solar cells have been explained in a new study.