Mrs Roberts: What do you think you're made of? Mr Spellman: Big question. Grit, determination, hard-working, handsome, charming, funny. Mrs Roberts: Well, I guess. But you're actually made of atoms.

If you hit an atom's nucleus hard enough, it will fall apart. But exactly how it falls apart tells us something about the internal structure of the nucleus and perhaps about the interior of neutron ...

Why do some elements decay in minutes, while others last billions of years? Certain "magic numbers" of nuclear particles may ...

The finding could be put to use at a new facility opening in 2020 that might create new elements—that is, nuclei with more than 118 protons—in addition to new isotopes of the known elements Scientists ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Examining the smallest parts of the universe often takes the biggest kinds of equipment. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a unique piece of equipment the size of a building is ...

The word magic is not often used in the context of science. But in the early 1930s, scientists discovered that some atomic nuclei—the center part of atoms, which make up all matter—were more stable ...

The answer to the enduring question of the smallest thing in the universe has evolved along with humanity. People once thought grains of sand were the building blocks of what we see around us. Then ...

This article was updated June 28 at 4:54 p.m. ET. Scientists have long wondered whether there is a limit to the number of protons and neutrons that can be clustered together to form the nucleus of an ...

Scientists have long wondered whether there is a limit to the number of protons and neutrons that can be clustered together to form the nucleus of an atom. A new study comes closer than ever to ...