Man, this year is coming to an end fast, and we're feeling a bit frazzled trying to get a bunch of stuff done before then. But we still pulled together some cool physics goodness for you this week. Among the highlights: LIGO and Virgo announce four new black hole mergers; the biophysics of how geckos can run on water; and 3D printing a wormhole for sound waves. Me at Ars Technica: Turning It Up to 11: Physicists detected gravitational waves from four new black-hole mergers. This brings the total number of events detected by LIGO and Virgo to 11.  Walking on Water: Geckos’ new superpower is run ..read more

Among this week's physics highlights: NASA's Insight lands safely on Mars; the math of how paper crumples; and analog computing with WiFI. Me at Ars Technica: This Too Shall Pass: Six people swallowed LEGOs and pored through their own poo for science. It takes about two days for LEGO minifig heads to pass through the body. Science!  We Got the Beat: New wearable tech lets users listen to live music through their skin. It's inspired by deaf fans of live concerts to help them "feel" the music.  One Man's Poison: We have food safety laws thanks to 19th century “poison squad,” young men who volunt ..read more

Metamaterials make a chip-sized synchrotron, a strange new state of matter called rigid light, and claims casting doubt on LIGO's first detection of gravitational waves are among this week's physics highlights. Me at Ars Technica: Signal to Noise: Danish physicists claim to cast doubt on detection of gravitational waves. LIGO responds: "There is absolutely no validity to their claims."  A Shaky Foundation: New study sheds more light on what caused London's Millennium Bridge to wobble. Pedestrians don't necessarily need to synchronize their gaits to cause shaking. Bonus: the physics of how Deat ..read more

A weird phase of water called ice-VII, a critical tipping point for the demise of Angkor, and when rock moves like a fluid are among this week's physics highlights. Me at Ars Technica: A Catastrophic Tipping Point: Collapse of ancient city’s water system may have led to its demise. Extreme weather events led to cascading failure of critical water infrastructure.  Greed Is Not Good: Study finds prior research claiming 1 in 5 CEOs are likely to be psychopaths was flawed. "We did not find a particularly high rate of psychopathy in CEOs or corporate leaders." Also: there was a gender bias, in that ..read more

The 2018 physics Nobel Prize, extra dimensions are probably tiny, and the physics of a perfect baseball pitch are among this week's physics highlights. Me at Ars Technica: 2018 physics Nobel Prize honors 3, including first woman in 55 years. Donna Strickland is first woman to win physics prize since 1963 and third ever to win. She shared the prize with Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories and Gérard Mourou of École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, in France for their combined work creating "tools made of light."  There’s new evidence confirming bias of the “father of scientific racism.” Paper bolsters ..read more

We're back from our wanderings! And we have two weeks' worth of tantalizing physics-y links for your reading pleasure. Among the highlights: reimagining Schroedinger's cat might break quantum mechanics, scientists produced the strongest indoor magnetic field ever (and blew up the lab in the process), and possible evidence of a supersymmetric particle in Antarctica. Me at Ars Technica: Study: people tend to cluster into four distinct personality “types.” Average, Reserved, Role Model, and Self-centered: not everyone falls into these four categories, but you might. And this new sorting algorithm ..read more

Among this week's physics highlights: An infrared cloaking device thanks to salt-infused graphene, the string theory universe landscape may not exist, and closing the door on "hidden variable" theories. My latest for Quanta: A Math Theory for Why We Hallucinate: Psychedelic drugs can trigger characteristic hallucinations, which have long been thought to hold clues about the brain’s circuitry. Now a possible explanation is crystallizing.  Salt-infused graphene creates an infrared cloaking device: "researchers have crafted a material that adapts its properties so that its infrared appearance is ..read more

Among this week's physics highlights: a star orbiting a black hole confirms relativity yet again; how rainbow physics can help self-driving cars; and the physics of drafting in the Tour de France. Astronomers Confirm Einstein’s Theory of Relativity By Watching a Star Orbit a Black Hole in the Milky Way. An observation decades in the making confirms predictions about how light behaves in an immense gravitational field. Related: By observing a cluster of stars near the hole, they were able to confirm a phenomenon known as "gravitational redshift."   Two Quarks for Muster Higgs: “Since the big di ..read more

Astronomers track a neutrino to its source for the first time; the physics of the perfect S'more; and how a dead fish could swim upstream are among this week's physics highlights. For the First Time, Astronomers Detected a 'Ghost Particle' and Tracked It to Its Source. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, along with over a dozen other institutions, shed light on the high-energy universe with multi-messenger astronomy. Related: The Solar Neutrino Problem — Science's Original Neutrino Mystery.   Also: How A Failed Nuclear Experiment Accidentally Gave Birth To Neutrino Astronomy. Before there were g ..read more

Taming turbulence by flattening fluids, two ways a crystal shrinks, and the physics of steeping tea are among this week's physics highlights. Mathematicians Tame Turbulence in Flattened Fluids: By squeezing fluids into flat sheets, researchers can get a handle on the strange ways that turbulence feeds energy into a system instead of eating it away.  Searching for the Quantumness of Gravity (Q&A): Brian Swingle believes that quantum entanglement could explain the nature of spacetime—an idea that could lead to a quantum theory of gravity.  See also my 2015 article on tensor networks for Quan ..read more