Browse Articles

The experimental investigation of relaxation times in graphene quantum dots has long been hindered by the limited tunability of these devices. Here Volk et. al.employ a device design to study this problem and report charge relaxation times of around 60–100 ns.

Information transport and control of the energy flow in a disordered system is difficult to achieve. Here Leonetti et al. demonstrate that the transmission of one laser mode in a random medium can be switched and amplified by exciting a second mode.

A strong increase in atmospheric ¹⁴C was measured in tree rings at AD 774 to 775, providing potential evidence of large cosmic ray fluxes to Earth, but the cause of this event is unclear. Here, Miyake et al. report a second ¹⁴C event in AD 993, which suggests that the most likely cause was a large solar proton event.

Controlling coupling between distant quantum objects is important for implementation of quantum technologies. Providing an important step towards using semiconductor structures for hosting optically controlled qubits, this work shows coherent coupling between three quantum dot excitons via a cavity.

The role of bacteria in the origin of iron formations (IF) remains unclear because no direct evidence for their involvement exists. This study shows that spherical siderite in deep-water IF represents a biosignature for photoferrotrophy, whereas massive siderite reflects high cyanobacterial biomass in shallow-water.

Few high-pressure polymorphs have been found from lunar meteorites even though the moon has experienced heavy meteorite bombardment. This study presents evidence of a high-pressure polymorph of silica—seifertite—from a lunar meteorite; a record of an intense planetary collision on the moon ~2.7 Ga ago.

Mimicking the behaviour of biological tissues requires finding biocompatible materials that can strengthen in response to external forces. Agrawal et al. show that polydomain nematic liquid crystal elastomers become unexpectedly stiffer when subjected to a small amplitude and repetitive compression.

The brains of rock- and sand-dwelling Lake Malawi cichlid fishes differ in telencephalon partitioning. Sylvester et al. show that these differences can be attributed to divergence in Hedgehog and Wingless signalling during development.

Intestinal plasma cells contribute to the delicate balance between immunity against pathogens and tolerance of intestinal microflora. Kunisawa et al. identify a subpopulation of plasma cells whose proliferation depends on stimulation by microbes and IL-10, and which mediate early-phase responses to oral antigens.

The motor protein myosin II is implicated in three-dimensional organ development. In this study, the authors apply live imaging techniques to describe the dynamics of the developing Drosophilawing and the involvement of myosin II in this process.

The identification of hosts of blood-sucking insects is important for studying ecological factors that affect pathogen distribution. Önder et al. report a proteomics-based methodology for the analysis of blood remnants in ticks that identifies the host species from which the tick has fed up to 6 months earlier.

Nanoantennas provide improvements in detection and fluorescence of nanoscale objects, which are usually limited to electric dipole radiation. By exploiting coupling to nanowire antennas, Curto et al. show controlled multipolar emission of a quantum dot, offering a novel multipolar photon source.

Both dendritic cells and basophils have been shown to influence T helper 2 cell induction, however the relative importance of their roles remains unclear. Otsuka et al. find that basophils present hapten and peptide antigens to T cells, but are unable to present protein antigens in the absence of dendritic cells.

Brown fat can dissipate energy as heat and has an important role in energy homoeostasis of rodents and possibly humans. Chenet al. show that microRNA 155 regulates the differentiation of brown adipocytes as well as the 'browning' of white fat cells in mice.

Referential gestures such as pointing direct attention towards an object and have only been observed in apes and ravens. Vail et al. show that fish signal to indicate the location of hidden prey to hunting partners, demonstrating that referential gestures are not restricted to large-brained species.

NMDA receptor activation requires the occupation of binding sites by glutamate and a glycine site agonist. Li and colleagues study this in synapses of the lateral nucleus of the amygdala and find that the identity of the NMDAR glycine site agonist depends on the level of synaptic activation.

The coffee ring effect is commonly observed in drying droplets containing suspended matter leading to a deposition at the droplet edge. Sempels et al. show that self-generated biosurfactants in living bacterial systems reverse the coffee ring effect and result in a homogeneous deposition.

Mutations of the SOD1gene are implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Wright and colleagues find that SOD1 aggregation in cells is arrested by compounds that bind at the core of SOD1 aggregates, rather than at the dimer interface site.

Cyanobacterial symbionts of marine diatoms can localize intracellularly or externally to their host partners. Here Hilton et al. describe the genomes of two diazotroph cyanobacterial symbionts of diatoms and show that the location of the symbiont affects expression of nitrogen assimilation genes.

Cavity polaritons, arising from strong coupling between light and matter in semiconductor structures, exhibit interesting and exotic phenomena. Tanese et al. study a polariton condensate in a periodic one-dimensional microcavity and find gap soliton states, which may be useful for polaritonic circuits.