Scientists just got a glimpse of what happened a half-second after the Big Bang

If the universe expanded very, very quickly in the first few moments after the Big Bang it would explain a lot of the things astronomers observe. That theory, inflation, is generally accepted by scientists, but they're still looking for physical evidence to support it. Monday, scientists announced that they might, finally, have that evidence. This is a Nobel-caliber discovery and Matthew Francis at Ars Technica does a good job of explaining the basics.