What to know

• By measuring the squishing and unsquishing of thorium-229 nuclei, two teams created a new type of clock that could someday beat the precision of atomic clocks.S1
• Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03060-9Ultraprecise clocks that use transitions in atomic nuclei to keep time show promise as a next-generation time standard and for probing fundamental physics.S2