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Whether in energy generation or environmental protection, materials research has already made many contributions. But the community has further to go to reduce the impacts of entire cycles of materials use.
The Library of Alexandria was the ancient world's premier seat of learning — its eventual destruction an intellectual tragedy. Can its spirit be revived in modern-day Egypt? Alison Abbott visits the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
How can the complex dynamics of human societies — such as population rise and fall, and movement — be explained? Combining masses of data with computer modelling is a fresh way forward.
At low temperature, some elements are superconductors under normal pressure. Others become superconducting if the pressure is raised. Lithium is the latest low-temperature, high-pressure superconductor.
In some bird species, both males and females seek to mate with other birds who are not their partners. It seems that this behaviour is motivated by a desire to reduce the harmful effects of inbreeding.
The discovery that a transcriptional repressor is turned on in prostate tumours as they become metastatic, leading to the silencing of many genes, suggests a new mechanism for tumour progression.
Silicon will eventually fail to satisfy the 'smaller, faster, cheaper' drive in technology. Nanoscale techniques could take over, and a recent conference reviewed the prospects for computing and electronics.
Scaling coefficients can reveal nonlinear relationships among biological variables. The approach has now proved fruitful in exploring the relationship between diversity at different taxonomic levels.
To design a fire-extinguishing system, it’s useful to know how water droplets behave when they collide at speed with hot surfaces. A new study reveals shortcomings in the present theoretical description.
In the right circumstances, two photons can meet and 'coalesce'. This effect has now been observed for photons emitted independently from a single-photon source, and has implications for quantum computing.
