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Viewing the budget crisis enveloping Europe's leading particle-accelerator lab, politicians may conclude that high-energy physicists cannot be trusted to manage billions of dollars of public money. This perception must be reversed — and fast.
The Nobels mark their centenary this week. Their prestige is unquestioned, but does the way in which winners are selected reflect the way science is done in the twenty-first century? Trisha Gura investigates.
In the 1950s there were hopes that semiconductor thermocouples would replace mechanical refrigerators, just as semiconductor transistors supplanted vacuum tubes. New materials may bring that goal a bit closer.
In some ecosystems at least, extrapolating from the short-term effects of global warming will give a misleading impression of the reaction over longer periods of time.
Mice become infertile if they lack the gene encoding a newly discovered sperm-specific ion channel. Sperm are produced in normal quantities, but have trouble moving.
For many years there has been uncertainty about the processes that trigger melting in solids. A new simulation manages to tie several threads together.
Gene expression requires several complex biochemical reactions to be carried out precisely. These reactions must also be coordinated, and molecular biologists now have a better handle on how that happens.
Making patterns from molecular building blocks sounds like child's play, but has been surprisingly difficult to do. A new approach to assembling molecules into patterns may ultimately lead to molecule-based devices.
Upper-tropospheric clouds contain ice particles, most of which result from the freezing of liquid droplets. That freezing, it emerges, is far more complicated than had been thought.
Artificial light has freed us from dependence on sunlight. But to improve the efficiency of electric lights Daedalus suggests sending electrons along a wiggly conductor.
