theSIGNAL SCIENCE
30 August 2026
"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
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Science

Universe Is Still Speeding Up, Nobel Team Confirms

A new study backed by two Nobel laureates overturns claims the universe was slowing down, keeping dark energy firmly on the cosmic map.

Picture the universe as a loaf of bread rising in an oven. Now imagine someone insists the oven has switched off. For a few alarming months last year, that is roughly what a team of South Korean astrophysicists claimed: cosmic expansion, they said, appeared to be decelerating. The scientific community held its breath.

Had everything we thought we knew just quietly collapsed? It had not. A new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, led by Dr. Phil Wiseman of the University of Southampton, pushes back firmly.

The international team — which includes Nobel laureates Adam Riess and Brian Schmidt, the very scientists who discovered accelerating expansion in the late 1990s — has re-examined the data and found the South Korean analysis was built on a misreading. The universe, it turns out, is still racing outward, driven by the strange repulsive force called dark energy. No crisis. No collapse.

Photo: Jeremy Thomas / Unsplash
A simulated deep-sky field of distant supernovae, the cosmic rulers at the heart of the dark-energy debate.
Discuss
  • Why is it significant that the rebuttal team includes the original Nobel Prize winners?
  • What does the metaphor of a 'cosmic ruler' tell us about how scientists measure vast distances in space?
  • Should a single study ever be enough to overturn a widely accepted scientific theory? Why or why not?
Science

It rains diamonds inside Neptune

Picture a billionth of a second. That is all the time Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists needed to crush diamond to pressures three times greater than Earth's core — and finally solve a 20-year mystery about Neptune's interior. For two decades, quantum models and lab measurements of diamond's melting point disagreed by over 1,000 kelvins. New X-ray diffraction data from Rochester's Omega Laser Facility closed that gap entirely. The strangest discovery? Solid diamond floats on liquid carbon — just as ice floats on water.…
  • If diamond floats on liquid carbon, what other 'impossible' material behaviours await discovery?
∞
Thankfully we have averted this crisis, but the mystery about why the rate of expansion of the universe is still accelerating remains.
Dr. Phil Wiseman, Lead Author, University of Southampton
Science

Your Dog May Hold Aging's Secrets

In 2024, researchers from the Dog Aging Project — a community science effort that follows thousands of pet dogs across the United States — discovered something quietly astonishing. Certain tiny molecules in dog blood, called metabolites, predict early or late death in patterns that mirror what scientists have already found in humans. These "metabolic fingerprints" are not random. The same chemicals that protect a Labrador in Texas seem to protect a person in Tokyo. Dr. Kate Creevy of Texas A&M finds this deeply rewarding — and useful. If dogs and humans age through similar biological pathways, then your family pet might become one of medicine's most surprising research partners.…
  • Should humans and dogs be studied together in long-term aging research programs?
AMERICAS · Science
Manhattan-sized ice island breaks off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier
WORLD · Science
Long-term melatonin use linked to 90% higher heart failure risk
OCEANIA · Science
The discovery of the Great Barrier Reef's whale maternity ward
ASIA · Science
A melting glacier contributed to the deadly Nepal floods. We can expect more like this
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
deceleratingrepulsive force
cosmic rulersX-ray diffractionmetabolites
metabolic fingerprintsquantum models
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Participle clauses — present (-ing) and past (-ed)
Participle clauses use a present participle (-ing) to show an active or simultaneous action, and a past participle (-ed) to show a passive or completed action; both replace longer relative or adverbial clauses.
driven · led · comparing · floating · published · staring · following
  1. The new study, by Dr. Phil Wiseman of the University of Southampton, challenges the South Korean team's conclusions.
  2. The universe continues to expand outward, by the mysterious repulsive force known as dark energy.
  3. By how quickly distant supernovae were moving away, scientists were able to prove that expansion was accelerating.
  4. The South Korean paper, last November, suggested that dark energy might be losing strength.
  5. After correcting one question, science found itself down a much larger and more troubling mystery.
  6. Solid diamond on liquid carbon means that diamond rain is almost certainly falling inside Neptune.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. re-examine
  2. close
  3. push back
  4. hold
  5. mirror
4CRITICAL THINKING
All three articles describe scientific findings that were initially surprising or even doubted — yet each rests on indirect evidence: the brightness of distant explosions, laser simulations of planetary interiors, and chemical patterns in dog blood. What does this reveal about the nature of scientific proof, and how should the public decide which findings to trust?
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
The three articles suggest that major scientific breakthroughs often come from unexpected sources — a corrected calculation, a laser fired for a billionth of a second, or a family pet. Choose one of these discoveries and argue whether luck, technology, or persistence deserves the most credit.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • incorrect→→
  • surprised→→
  • fast→→
  • odd→→
  • pushing→→
  • useful→→
8SPEAKING
  1. What role does community science play in major discoveries?
  2. Could a lab error ever end a scientific career unfairly?
  3. Which unsolved mystery excites you most — dark energy or diamond rain?
  4. How quickly should journals retract studies proven wrong?