The discovery of radioactivity allowed scientists to develop new methods of determining Earth's age, with astonishing results. Our planet is far older than people had thought! Students can understand ...

Radioactivity, discovered more than 100 years ago and studied by physicists ever since, would seem to be a relatively closed subject in science. However, since the 1960s, the pursuit of at least one ...

Back in 2007, physicists at the GSI heavy ion accelerator in Darmstadt, Germany, made a puzzling discovery. These guys were measuring the radioactive decay rates of praseodymium and promethium nuclei ...

Hickory dickory dock, this nucleus could make a great clock. A special variety of the element thorium hosts an atomic nucleus that could be used to keep time, scientists say. In a first, researchers ...

Geologists have calculated the age of Earth at 4.6 billion years. But for humans whose life span rarely reaches more than 100 years, how can we be so sure of that ancient date? It turns out the ...

Here’s a hypothesis for you: radioactive decay varies over time, possibly with a yearly cycle. [Panteltje] decided to test this hypothesis, and so far has two year’s worth of data to comb over.