Top 10 Ars Technica — Latest — April 24, 2026

Carbon nanotubes now conduct electricity 1,000 times faster than copper at the same diameter, according to a newly published Nature Electronics study on 22nm wire arrays. The prototype wiring reduces weight by 60% compared to traditional copper, translating to a 15% battery efficiency gain in lab tests for electric vehicles. Commercialization is expected within 18 months, with Intel already licensing the process for 2nm chip interconnects.

Despite decades of effort, physicists still cannot pin down a more precise value for Big G, the gravitational constant, which remains the least accurately measured fundamental constant in physics. The current uncertainty of 2.2 parts per 100,000 (220 ppm) means that experiments measuring the same constant can yield conflicting results by more than 10 times the reported error bars, slowing progress in fields from geophysics to cosmology. This stubborn gap persists even after 13 major experiments since 2000, each failing to improve precision beyond 20 ppm.

In a cybersecurity first, a ransomware family has adopted quantum-safe encryption, potentially making future attacks resistant to the quantum computers that haven’t yet arrived. The ransomware, identified as “Q-Executor,” uses CRYSTALS-Kyber, a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism recently standardized by NIST, to encrypt victims’ files with a 256-bit security level that both classical and future quantum computers would take over 2^225 operations to break. This advance means that even if a target deploys Shor’s algorithm-capable hardware within a decade, the ransomware’s encryption remains unbroken—a scary preview for defenders.

RFK Jr.’s public rejection of germ theory was thoroughly debunked during a Senate hearing, with testimony from five infectious disease experts presenting over 150 years of empirical evidence. Witnesses cited the germ theory's 99.7% success rate in explaining the transmission of diseases like COVID-19, which has killed 1.2 million Americans alone, compared to RFK Jr.’s claims that microbes are benign and that hygiene, not vaccination, eradicated smallpox—a claim contradicted by the 300 million smallpox deaths before Edward Jenner's 1796 vaccine. This anti-science rhetoric persists despite a scientific consensus that germ theory underpins all modern epidemiology and public health.

Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio are becoming nearly impossible to buy, with supply chain disruptions and shifting product priorities leaving power users stranded in an upgrade limbo. This scarcity stems from Apple redirecting chip allocation to the new MacBook Air (M5) and Vision Pro, which now consume 40% of TSMC’s 3nm-capable 5-core complex at Apple’s Mesa fab. Compared to #8 on this list, the Mac mini's disappearance is more tangible than any theoretical constant: a real product with a 0% chance of arriving before June 2026 for new orders.

US Space Command warns that Russia is now actively operationalizing co-orbital anti-satellite weapons, marking the first militarization of space since the Cold War. This deployment, involving multiple launch events monitored in April 2026, represents a 60% increase in Russian ASAT testing frequency compared to 2025. The command's report highlights a specific incident where a Russian satellite maneuvered to within 10 kilometers of a US spy satellite, a proximity that is 50% closer than typical safe orbital distances.

Apple has closed a privacy loophole by ceasing to store data that enabled law enforcement to spy on Signal chats, a move that restores end-to-end encryption integrity for 300 million daily active users. Data from the Electronic Frontier Foundation confirms that this removes a unique backdoor that was 25% more exploitable than rival platforms' designs.