Scientist creates 'mini‑universe' to measure time without a clock

How the mini-universe works

Barontini used a cloud of 24,000 ultracold atoms—just a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero—to create a hermetically sealed quantum system that mimics a simple "universe."

Okay, so they didn't create a new universe. They just sectioned off a portion of the universe we already have, and did experiments on it. Still neat, though.