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Physicists at CERN have found a new way to peer deep inside atomic nuclei and distinguish between two competing explanations for how gluons behave. Using the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, researchers measured particle production at unprecedented spatial resolution, revealing structures as small as about one-quarter the size of a proton. At the smallest scales, they saw a surprising drop in J/ψ production that conventional “nuclear shadowing” struggles to explain.

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Unconventional quantum theories may imply that time itself has a tiny fundamental uncertainty, placing an ultimate limit on how precisely any clock could measure it. The effect is far beyond current detection, but it could reveal a hidden connection between quantum mechanics, gravity, and spacetime.

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Dear Colleagues,

The U.S. National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to keep American discovery at the frontier. That mission has not changed. The science and technology ecosystem around it has.

We’ve heard this message clearly from researchers across disciplines and settings. Science today is no longer a straight line from laboratory to application. Talent is more widely distributed beyond organizations that have traditionally received federal support. Philanthropies and the private sector have risen to become major players in both basic and applied research. Artificial intelligence is changing not only what we can study, but how research itself is organized.

To meet this moment, NSF is embracing a portfolio approach, where the structure of an award matches the nature of the work. We are expanding who carries out NSF-supported work and how, to enable ambitious, multidisciplinary inquiry at the scientific frontier. We will find and support exceptional students and early-career researchers, at the stage when research creativity is high. Our new Office of Metascience will rigorously assess the effectiveness of new initiatives, scaling what works and retiring what does not.

Many of these changes at NSF have already begun. We know none of this succeeds without you, NSF’s staff, reviewers, awardees, students, and partners across academia and industry. NSF’s role is to create conditions for exceptional science to happen more often and more frequently. We are

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