Nature.

In an experiment, I don't know yet.

Why is Blight so far?

Like, it sounds so simple.

They had no idea.

But now the data's...

I find this not only refreshing, but at some level astounding.

Nature.

Welcome back to the nature podcast.

This week, observing the strange subatomic particles called pions... And the life of Galileo Galilei.

I'm Charmoney Bundell.

And I'm Charmany Bundell and I'm Nicau.

First up on the show, pyons. Pyons are subatomic particles you might not have heard of,

even though they stream down from the atmosphere all the time. Like protons, they're made up of quarks, but while protons have three quarks, pions have just two, and that makes them both super unstable and reactive. On their own in a vacuum, a negatively charged pion might live for a few billionths of a second, but attempt to capture one in a material to study it and it reacts, disappearing in mere trillions of a second.

This week in nature, scientists have used an ingenious method to keep pylons around a little longer, by sticking

them into helium atoms. Though hypothesized to exist, the creation of pionic helium has never been

verified until now. Aside from being a bit weird, pionic helium is useful because it keeps the

troublesome pions alive long enough

to measure them using spectroscopy, and that could open up whole new avenues for research

into this elusive particle. Reporter Lizzie Gibney called up lead author Masaki Hori to find out more

and started by asking about why physicists thought pionic helium could be

created in the first place.

...