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Sure, AirTags are great. But when it comes to slipping one into your wallet, they’re bulky, awkward, and basically begging to fall out. That’s why Apple fans are quietly upgrading to the KeySmart SmartCard, a sleek, credit card-sized tracker that works with the same Find My app but fits in places an AirTag never could.

They’re selling for about the same cost as the AirTag, too, at just $30 each when you get a pack of three ($35 when sold separately). Grab your 3-pack of the KeySmart SmartCards for $89.99 with free shipping while we still have some left in stock (reg.$119.97).

Why everyone’s ditching the AirTag

The SmartCard’s claim to fame is its ultraslim profile. The wallet tracker card is less than 2mm thick and thinner than a Ritz cracker, making it fit right next to your credit cards without creating a bulge. But don’t let the size fool you—this tiny powerhouse still does everything you’d expect from a premium tracker.

Like the AirTag, the SmartCard syncs with Apple’s Find My app. You can:

• See your item’s location on a map
• Play a sound to help find it when it’s nearby
• Get notified if you accidentally leave it behind

Where the SmartCard pulls ahead is in the little things that add up. Unlike AirTags, there’s no need to swap out batteries—just drop the SmartCard on a Qi-compatible wireless charger every five months or so.

Plus, it’s IPX8 waterproof, which is a step above the AirTag’s IP67 rating. So if your wallet takes an unexpected dive in a puddle, your tracker will keep on ticking.

And while the SmartCard was built for wallets, people are using it in all kinds of clever ways: tucked into passports, slipped into luggage, even clipped to pet carriers. With its built-in lanyard slot, it’s also a smart solution for keeping ID badges and security cards safe.

Order your 3-pack of AirTag alternatives for $89.99 with free shipping (reg. $119.97).

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

KeySmart® SmartCard – Works with Apple Find My (3-Pack)

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The post They made a wallet tracker like the AirTag, but thinner than a Ritz cracker appeared first on Popular Science.

Every book was a laborious project during the Middle Ages. And according to a first-of-its-kind quantitative review, more than a few of them were penned by women.

Experts estimate medieval scribes produced over 10 million manuscripts between 400-1500 CE, each one painstakingly copied, illustrated, and bound by hand. Only around 750,000 still exist today, but there is still plenty to learn from the surviving artifacts, as well as the artisans who created them. But while most books were written by monks hunched over desks in monastery scriptoriums for hours at a time, that wasn’t always the case. The striking historical revisions are detailed by researchers from Norway’s University of Bergen in a study published last month in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

The authors noted that while previous studies examined gender roles in monastic scriptoria, none attempted to calculate how many women contributed to these intense undertakings. To begin their study, the team relied on a common section found in most medieval manuscripts called a colophon. Ostensibly a publisher’s biography, scribes often included colophons at the end of books to record their name, who commissioned the project, date of production, and sometimes even a short reflection statement.

First, researchers turned to an existing catalogue of Benedictine colophons, reviewing all 23,774 entries for linguistic confirmations of gender. A total of 254 were linked to female scribes, with 204 featuring the names of the women themselves. This comes out to roughly 1.1 percent of the Benedictine database’s books.

“Using existing estimates for manuscript production and loss we may infer, under the assumption that the estimates are valid, that at least 110,000 manuscripts were copied by female scribes, of which around 8,000 should still exist,” the researchers wrote.

While a modest number, researchers cautioned their estimate is likely lower than the actual total. Many women may have purposefully omitted their gender or name in their colophons, or simply did not include them at all. Meanwhile, varying manuscript survival rates across geographies could also have skewed the data.

One thing is almost certain: the number of known female scriptoria described in existing records likely could not have produced all of the estimated 110,000 women-penned manuscripts. Because of this, the team believes their investigation “strongly suggests that there are female book-producing communities not yet identified.” Another possibility is that there simply may have been “many more female scribes,” than we thought.

“Our study should be seen as a first step, opening new perspectives,” wrote the authors.

The post A surprising number of medieval scribes were women appeared first on Popular Science.

A fossil trove uncovered in Wyoming is providing some of the best examples yet of an ancient species of alligator-sized amphibians. But while paleontologists describe the specimens as “exquisitely preserved,” the reason behind their rapid die-off remains a mystery. The find is detailed in a study published April 2 in the journal PLOS One.

Metoposaurid tenospondyls are some of the earliest ancestors of today’s frogs, toads, and salamanders. The oldest known species in North America, Buettnererpeton bakeri, existed exclusively on the continent during the Triassic era around 230 million years ago. The squat, four-legged animal lurked in freshwater ponds, rivers, and lakes, where it fed on essentially anything it could fit into its mouth.

“Like other metoposaurids, it probably spent most, if not all, of its life in the water eating fish, other amphibians, or anything unfortunate enough to venture too far into the water,” University of Wisconsin-Madison paleolontologists and study co-authors Dave Lovelace and Aaron Kufner told Popular Science.

Beyond that, not much is known about Buettnererpeton due to the scarcity of fossils. But according to Lovelace and Kufner, that may soon change thanks to their excavation work on the ancient floodplain site Nobby Knob in Dubois, Wyoming. There, paleontologists found dozens of fossilized Buettnererpeton remains—more than doubling the total number of known specimens. But these Triassic age amphibian fossils didn’t accumulate over decades or centuries. Instead, they appear to have died during a single mass mortality event.

“It was a local die-off like we see when rivers dry up, or when lakes have influxes of nutrients that cause algae blooms, both of which can kill off aquatic life like fish,” Lovelace and Kufner explained.

This particular die-off evidence stands out from others due to the rock in which it was found. The fine-grained soil and layered sediments indicate a low energy or calm depositional environment, meaning a lack of strong currents. Thanks to this, many of the skeletons are largely intact and well-preserved.

“There are some articulated bones that are nearly absent in other metoposaurid bone beds in North America, and completely unknown for Buettnererpeton,” said the paleontologists.

New details include the discovery of articulated toothy plates that were embedded in the soft tissue of Buettnererpeton’s mouth, as well as the unique way other fossils formed.

“They all lack any evidence of the calcium carbonate that would have formed most of their [fossil] shell… What seems to have happened is that the calcium carbonate dissolved after they were buried, and the outer organic layer (which helps prevent the shell from dissolving in freshwater during life) left an impression as the mud turned to rock then was later lost,” they explained.

According to the study’s authors, the mass burial was likely due to the existence of a nearby Buettnererpeton breeding colony, or a drought-induced restricted waterway that concentrated them together before they died.

“This assemblage is a snapshot of a single population rather than an accumulation over time,” Kufner said in a separate statement.

The research team hopes their excavation work and taphonomic analysis (the study of an organism’s death and subsequent preservation) will lead to future examinations of the site. Further studies may also increase our understanding of Buettnererpeton and the environment in which it lived. 

“Taphonomic studies are commonplace today and much more common than they were over 50 years ago thanks to the work of dozens if not hundreds of geologists and paleontologists,” said Kufner and Lovelace, adding, “There is plenty still to be done!”

The post Ancient alligator-sized amphibians died under mysterious circumstances appeared first on Popular Science.

A dissolvable pacemaker that’s smaller than a grain of rice and powered by light could become an invaluable tool for saving the lives of newborn infants., The device can be implanted noninvasively via syringe, and may also be useful for adult patients dealing with certain heart defects. The medical breakthrough is detailed in a study published April 2 in Nature.

Roughly one percent of infants are born with heart defects every year. The majority of these cases only require a temporary implant for about seven days to allow time for the heart to naturally self-repair. But for low-resource regions of the world lacking access to advanced medical care, what should be a simple procedure can often end in tragedy. Meanwhile, the current standard for temporary pacemakers in adults also presents difficulties. Most procedures involve surgeons sewing electrodes directly onto the heart, then attaching those electrodes to an external pacing box using wires that exit a patient’s chest. Doctors remove the electrodes once they are no longer needed, but post-surgery risks include infection, damaged tissue, dislodgment, and blood clots. The wires sometimes also become encased in scar tissue, presenting further complications.

“That’s actually how Neil Armstrong died. He had a temporary pacemaker after a bypass surgery. When the wires were removed, he experienced internal bleeding,” experimental cardiologist and study co-lead Igor Efimov explained in a statement.

In 2021, a Northwestern University team including Efimov unveiled a quarter-sized, biodegradable temporary pacemaker without cumbersome batteries, rigid components, or wiring. The device relies on near-field communication protocols similar to those used in RFID tags and smartphones to complete electronic payments. For this to work, however, the pacemaker needed to include a built-in antenna to relay radio frequency commands.

“Our original pacemaker worked well. It was thin, flexible and fully resorbable. But the size of its receiver antenna limited our ability to miniaturize it,” said its co-creator and bioelectronics pioneer John Rogers.

Rogers, Efimov, and collaborators spent the next few years researching ways to shrink their temporary pacemaker to even smaller proportions. They eventually realized they could swap out the radio antenna for a design that instead relies on light-based data transmission. They also replaced the original device’s near-field communication power source with a galvanic cell—a type of battery that converts chemical energy into electrical energy. In the new version, the pacemaker relies on two metal electrodes that generate an electrical current after interacting with surrounding biofluids. This current is then directed to stimulate and regulate the heart through a miniscule, infrared light-activated switch installed on the battery’s opposite side.

“Infrared light penetrates very well through the body,” said Efimov. “If you put a flashlight against your palm, you will see the light glow through the other side of your hand. It turns out that our bodies are great conductors of light.”

Because the human heart requires only a small amount of electrical stimulation, researchers were able to shrink their next-generation pacemaker even smaller. The final result is a 1-millimeter-thick device measuring just 1.8 mm wide and 3.5 mm long that is still capable of delivering as much electrical stimulation as a standard pacemaker.

“We have developed what is, to our knowledge, the world’s smallest pacemaker,” Rogers said.

Given its materials safely dissolve over time, the pacemaker also doesn’t require any follow-up invasive surgery to remove it. This dramatically cuts down on the potential for post-op complications and trauma.

But why stop at just one miniature pacemaker? Efimov, Rogers, and collaborators believe that further advancements could allow the deployment of multiple devices across the heart. Once implanted, designers could coordinate them to move independently or together based on specific light wavelengths. This could lead to more complex synchronization therapies, including those that treat arrhythmias.

“We also could incorporate our pacemakers into other medical devices like heart valve replacements, which can cause heart block,” suggested Efimov.

The device’s size also means it can be incorporated into other implantable tools such as transcatheter aortic valve replacements, pain inhibitors, as well as nerve and bone restoration techniques. These future possibilities, however, all trace back to the team’s original goal.

“Our major motivation was children,” said Efimov. “Now, we can place this tiny pacemaker on a child’s heart and stimulate it with a soft, gentle, wearable device.”

The post World’s smallest pacemaker is the size of a grain of rice appeared first on Popular Science.

TL;DR: A calming, Montessori-inspired app that makes screen time smarter—Get a lifetime subscription to Pok Pok for 76% off 

Screen time isn’t going anywhere. But not all screen time has to mean loud noises, flashing lights, or kids glued to an iPad watching cartoons. Pok Pok is an award-winning app made by parents, for parents—and it’s designed actually to help your child grow while they play.

Instead of games that hype kids up or frustrate them when they “lose,” Pok Pok takes a Montessori-based approach. That means kids lead the way, learning through curiosity and problem-solving instead of points, prizes, or timers. It’s screen time that feels more like playtime—just quiet, thoughtful, and educational.

Why parents love Pok Pok

• No ads, no stress: There are zero ads and nothing to buy in the app, so your child won’t get tricked into clicking anything they shouldn’t
• Low-stimulation design: Hand-drawn art and calm sound effects make it peaceful—no loud music, jump cuts, or fast-paced action
• No levels or scores: Kids aren’t pressured to win or “beat” the app. They explore at their own pace and build confidence naturally
• Offline play: Download games ahead of time so kids can play without Wi-Fi; perfect for travel or quiet moments at home
• New content all the time: Regular updates add new “toys” and activities so the app grows with your child
• Science-backed learning: Based on Montessori education, which has been shown to support creativity, focus, independence, and lifelong learning skills

Whether you’re traveling, working from home, or need a quieter moment than thirty minutes of Paw Patrol can provide, Pok Pok offers screen time you can feel good about—and your kid will love.

Get lifetime access to Pok Pok for $59.99 (Reg. $250) and help your child play smarter, not louder.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

 

Pok Pok: Lifetime Subscription – $59.99

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The post Your kid’s screen time can be quieter (and smarter) than you think with this app appeared first on Popular Science.

The names for two internet-famous eagle chicks have officially been announced. The eaglet formerly known as Bigger Chick is named Sunny and Smaller Chick is now Gizmo. Sunny and Gizmo joined mom Jackie and dad Shadow on their nest overlooking Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino mountains east of Los Angeles, California in March. The nest is monitored by cameras 24/7 by nonprofit organization Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV).

According to FOBBV, over 54,000 names were submitted. The third, fourth, and fifth grade classes at Big Bear Valley elementary schools voted on the new names on April 1. They chose from 31 names including Skye, Crackle, Talon, Blaze, and Bell. In 2022, Jackie and Shadow’s chick named Spirit from the 10,000 names that were submitted. The tradition of having these youngsters choose the name goes back to Jackie’s parents Ricky and Lucy.

“The third graders always study eagles,” FOBBV executive director Sandy Steers tells Popular Science. “A biologist who has since retired, but was at the Forest Service, was talking about eagles with the third graders. She had that connection and put this in place.”

According to FOBBV, a DNA test is the only way to positively determine the sex in bald eagles. The team may or may not guess at the sex when the eaglets are 10 weeks of old based on their size, vocal pitch, and other visual characteristics.

For the tens of thousands of viewers who have been following this journey via a 24-hour livecam, it’s been an emotional rollercoaster. After three eggs failed to hatch in 2024, three eggs appeared in the nest. Chick 1 hatched late on March 3, followed by Chick 2 early on March 4, and Chick 3 hatched on March 8. On the evening of March 13, a snowstorm hit the area dumping up to two feet of snow and pummeling the nest with strong winds. On the morning of March 14, only two of the chicks were visible on the live cam. FOBBV later confirmed the passing of one of the chicks.

FOBBV believes that Chick 1 died based on foot size and the amount of thermal down feathers in the other two eaglets. The deceased chick has since been named Misty in honor of Kathi Misterly, an FOBBV volunteer who passed away after a battle with cancer.

The post Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets officially named. Meet Sunny and Gizmo. appeared first on Popular Science.

There are a ton of great wireless soundbars out there, but the higher-end models can cost as much or even more than your TV itself. The lower-end models often lack the features you want, like Dolby Atmos. I typically recommend people look for a mid-tier model from a previous model year, as they’re usually available at super-low clearance prices. That’s what’s happening now at Walmart with this Philips B8905 3.1.2 Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer. It retails for $449, but it’s just $98 right now until it sells out.

Philips B8905 3.1.2 Channel Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer — $98 (was $449)

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You’d expect to miss out on some essential features when spending $100 on a soundbar, but this kit has an impressive spec sheet for this clearance price. It comes with a full-sized soundbar with a dedicated center speaker to help emphasize dialogue. The wireless subwoofer connects easily and requires only a power cord to stay synced with the rest of the system.

The B8905 supports Dolby Atmos virtual surround sound tech, so you’ll get an impressively immersive sound without scattering speakers and wires around your room. It has built-in Bluetooth for musical playback and 4K pass-through, as well as eARC HDMI technologies, so it’s versatile when it comes to customizing your setup. Nobody likes having a ton of remotes around, so you can simply control everything through one device.

This isn’t an entry-level device; it’s a mid-tier device at an entry-level price.

The post Grab this $449 Philips soundbar with Dolby Atmos for just $98 on clearance at Walmart appeared first on Popular Science.

A roughly 4,800-year-old royal Mesopotamian cemetery in eastern Turkey appears to complicate existing theories about how some Bronze Age societies shifted from egalitarianism to more rigid class structures. While more analysis is required, the implications may provide a more nuanced understanding of how social inequality codified among some of the earliest known civilizations. Regardless of the ultimate explanation, one thing appears clear about the new find according to a study published on March 17 in the Cambridge Archeological Journal: human sacrifices were part of it.

The recent discoveries were made at Başur Höyük, a Bronze Age settlement dating back to around 3300 BCE and located in present-day Turkey’s eastern province of Siirt. Başur Höyük includes what may be some of the region’s earliest known royal burial tombs. However, the finds don’t make much sense given what experts understand of early Mesopotamia. It all comes down to location. Başur Höyük wasn’t a major cultural center; it was located on the Bronze Age society’s periphery.

Nevertheless, the tombs were filled with dozens of metal items and weapons, including gold and silver jewelry along with bronze daggers and spearheads. These possibly suggest that privileged kingship and warrior aristocracies had access to both resources and technologies in a region that isn’t traditionally associated with luxury. But it’s the biological remains at a palace complex called Arslantepe that provide some of the starkest—and violent—evidence that supports historical reevaluation.

Arslantepe is located on Turkey’s Maltya Plain far from lowland Mesopotamia’s urban centers. In addition to these luxury items, the tomb burial complex also contains evidence of human sacrifices. More specifically, many of the victims appear to be adolescent girls aged 12 to 16 years old and dressed in clothing made from foreign materials. They were also placed in an adjacent room to the main body, indicating some kind of hierarchical arrangement. While it may be tempting for modern minds to leap to certain conclusions, the authors cautioned that there are still numerous unknowns about these Bronze Age cultures.

“It is tempting, on this basis, to begin speculating about the existence of male warrior cults or initiation groups at the dawn of the Bronze Age,” the team wrote in the study. “However, it is important to note that determinations of sex… show a mixture of males and females, and perhaps even a preponderance of females in the early phases of the cemetery at Başur Höyük.” The authors also added that they have so far found “no clear correlation” between a victim’s biological sex and their positioning.

One of potentially many alternative lines of thought to consider about Başur Höyük goes into greater detail about the sacrificial victims’ possible roles in society. In this theory, charismatic kings and dynastic lineages began not with male warrior cults, but in ritual associations of youth among otherwise loosely ranked societal classes. In any case, the authors stressed that it’s important to resist forcing existing societal models onto an archeological find like Başur Höyük.

“The new picture is decidedly more complex and suggests that a linear trajectory from ‘small-scale egalitarian’ to ‘large-scale stratified’ societies may simply not exist there,” they wrote. “Instead, the most radical and enduring forms of inequality—including charismatic forms of kingship—may have emerged first on a small scale, only later coming to occupy the civic domain.” 

The post Sacrificed teens discovered in ancient Mesopotamian burial site appeared first on Popular Science.

Alzheimer’s disease’s impact is growing as our population ages, but much of the disease’s pathophysiology remains unclear. A study published last year in the journal Nature revealed a significant new finding about Alzheimer’s disease–it could spread between individuals under unusual circumstances. The finding is one of several that link Alzheimer’s to rare prion diseases, a connection that could change how we prevent and treat dementia. 

A dangerous donation

Craniopharyngioma is a benign brain tumor, meaning it isn’t cancerous. However, these small growths, which squat in the base of the brain, still have devastating side effects. They open shop next to the pituitary gland, a source of critical hormones. In adults, this can affect sexual performance or menstrual cycles. 

In children, the tumor can stunt growth in crucial years of life. Biologists found a breakthrough treatment for these children in the 1950s–human growth hormone. Usually released by the pituitary gland, the scientists found that human growth hormone could be extracted from other people and donated to those with craniopharyngioma. Donors could even give their hormones after death. However, over the 25 years that children received these donations, some patients’ lives changed for the worse. 

The problem with the treatment was one missing step. Most of the donation protocols required that clinicians sieve donated brain extract using a technique called size-exclusion chromatography. This separation ensured that large protein aggregates were absent from the final donation. One approach omitted this step, with disastrous consequences. Two hundred children developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)–a rare prion disease that causes rapid brain damage and dementia. Since the donation protocols had not screened the PrP protein out of the donated samples, some of the patients were sickened. 

In response, the use of cadaver-derived growth hormone was immediately and permanently suspended. But prion diseases can take decades to emerge, so researchers have monitored affected children throughout the rest of their lives. 

That explains why it took until 2024 for scientists to realize that prion disease wasn’t all that had slipped through the net. 

‘Alzheimer’s can be induced’

The 2024 study led by University College London professor John Collinge reported on five growth hormone recipients who had developed Alzheimer’s disease pathology at incredibly young ages–one at just 39 years old. Collinge’s group had previously reported that some of the growth hormone batches that four members of the group received had been contaminated with amyloid beta and tau, two proteins that are heavily implicated in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.  

Lary Walker, a neurologist and neurodegenerative disease researcher at Emory University, has argued for decades that the way Alzheimer’s disease spreads in the brain mimics the march of prion proteins. Walker explains to Popular Science that colleagues had often received his experimental work with the same hesitancy–that findings in animal models may not be replicable in humans. This new study shows that these findings are replicable, according to Walker. The paper “indicates that actual Alzheimer’s disease can be induced in all of its manifestations in humans,” Walker added. 

Richard Knight, a prion researcher at the University of Edinburgh, explains that prion diseases and other neurodegenerative conditions are linked by shared mechanisms. “They all involve the deposition of an abnormally folded normal protein in the tissue,” Knight tells Popular Science. The conditions also usually all begin in one specific brain area and spread. 

But prion diseases differ from other conditions in their aggressiveness. Knight, who worked in the field during the outbreaks of CJD that affected the UK in the 1990s, points out that the disease can progress at a terrifying rate. CJD could begin in the cerebellum, affecting coordination, but then affect the whole brain in weeks. “Alzheimer’s disease might spread over a decade or more,” Knight explains. 

Transmission and transfusion 

Knight says that the method of transmission that Collinge identified is “extremely unusual,” and there’s no evidence that Alzheimer’s can spread through medical procedures used today. He also conceded that if Alzheimer’s could spread more easily, it would be much harder to notice. 

An exploratory 2023 study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine raised the troubling prospect that blood transfusions could possibly transmit the amyloid-linked disease cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). Prion diseases like CJD may also be spread via blood transfusions. The study authors wrote that their results require replication to interpret correctly, but it would be hard to determine if either CAA or Alzheimer’s disease, can be transmitted this way.

Prion disease is incredibly rare. Knight explains that when several blood donors and their recipients both went on to develop prion disease, it quickly became apparent that it was no coincidence. But when 40 percent of people over age 90 have dementia, it becomes much more challenging to work out which cases may have been transmitted via blood, a patient’s genetics, or environmental factors. 

Exploring how disease-causing proteins spread is essential work, which could help improve treatments by pointing researchers toward early biomarkers of disease. Understanding these proteins could also answer pressing questions about risk factors for these conditions. While Alzheimer’s isn’t infectious like diseases from a virus or bacteria, establishing how this disease moves can help us stop it altogether in the future.  

The post How an unusual medical procedure transmitted Alzheimer’s appeared first on Popular Science.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) remains one of the pinnacles of scientific and technological innovation, but physicists believe there’s room for improvement. And after years of research and development, an international team led by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has released a blueprint detailing plans for the particle accelerator’s successor—and its size puts the “Large” in “Large Hadron Collider” to shame.

Since inaugural operations began in 2008, the LHC has allowed researchers to probe some of the universe’s most profound and mysterious forces. But investigating the deepest questions of modern physics requires a lot of time, energy, and space. The machine’s logistics are nearly incomprehensible without a degree in quantum physics, but its underlying mechanisms are relatively simple: basically, the LHC consists of a precise network of extremely powerful magnets that rush subatomic particles through a 17-mile-wide circular tunnel buried roughly 574 feet underneath the French-Swiss border near Geneva. The particles then smash into one another at nearly the speed of light, producing conditions approximating some of the universe’s most powerful interactions.

In 2013, for example, LHC experiments helped to finally complete the Standard Model of Physics after confirming the existence of the Higgs boson aka “God particle.” Long theorized but never documented, the Higgs boson helps explain how the very first matter coalesced in the moments after the Big Bang.

But even the LHC’s capabilities have their limits. At a certain point, any future discoveries would require an even larger particle accelerator—which is exactly what CERN hopes to accomplish with a Future Circular Collider (FCC).

“Ultimately what we would like to do is a collider which will come up with 10 times more energy than what we have today,” CERN spokesman Arnaud Marsollier told the Associated Press. “When you have more energy, then you can create particles that are heavier.”

CERN shared its FCC feasibility study findings on March 29 after spending a decade investigating at least 100 scenarios. According to the study’s accompanying announcement, experts have settled on a plan that balances “physics objectives, geology, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, territorial and environmental dimensions, R&D needs for the accelerators and detectors, socioeconomic benefits, and cost.” And that plan requires the construction of an underground facility that would dwarf the LHC.

At nearly 56.5 miles across, the FCC would be more than three times the LHC’s size while including eight surface laboratory sites overseeing four ongoing experiments. The tunnel itself would be about 16 ft in diameter (compared to the LHC tunnel’s 12 ft width), and will be buried at an average depth of 656 ft.

CERN’s Feasibility Study Report outlines two possible stages for the FCC. The first, an electron-positron collider, would serve as a “Higgs, electroweak, and top-quark factory running at different center-of-mass energies.” The second stage involves a proton-proton collider capable of generating “an unprecedented collision energy” of about 100 tera-electronvolts (TeV).

The FCC isn’t a done deal yet, however. The estimated $16 billion project still requires an independent review, followed by a collective decision from CERN’s two dozen member countries in 2028. The FCC will also essentially be a multigenerational project, if greenlit. Researchers estimate the facility wouldn’t begin its first operations until the mid-2040s, with a second phase beginning around 2070.

Discoveries made during FCC experiments would likely be well worth the wait, and influence far more than just theoretical physics. According to CERN, particle accelerators like the LHC and FCC can contribute to advances in superconducting materials for medical uses, fusion energy research, electricity transmission, as well as many other areas.

The post The atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider’s successor will be 56 miles wide appeared first on Popular Science.