Excited quantum states in nature are normally extremely short-lived, and this certainly applies to most nuclei. But what makes the metastable nuclear states different? And how can we exploit them for ...

One hundred years after “nuclear isomers” were first discovered, Philip Walker and Zsolt Podolyák pick five examples of these long-lived, excited nuclear states to show why they are so important in ...

Samples from water, fish and bird eggs demonstrate the need to measure these unique molecular structures separately.