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Data on the movement of people becomes ever more detailed, but robust models explaining the observed patterns are still needed. Mapping the problem onto a 'network of networks' could be a promising approach.
Motion in assemblies of grains jams at high density and low drive. On approaching the jamming transition, the dynamics becomes increasingly spatially heterogeneous, and strongly reminiscent of the behaviour of glass-forming liquids.
Solid objects generally produce a splash upon entering water. Surprisingly, a small change in the surface chemistry of an object can turn a big splash into an inconspicuous disappearance and vice versa.
A semiconductor device that integrates electron spin injection, transport, modulation and detection in a single structure provides an important step in versatility for both fundamental research and practical spintronic applications.
The ability to build electronic structures from graphene sheets has progressed significantly. Two theoretical studies suggest that graphene nanostructures could be used for quantum information processing.
It's more than twenty years since our journey towards a theory of high-temperature superconductivity began, but we've yet to reach our destination. The road ahead is winding, but there are new data and ideas to guide us.
In 1845, Faraday noted that the plane of polarization of light is rotated when a light beam travels through a material in a magnetic field. Now, Faraday rotation due to one single electron spin has been observed.
Evidence for the superradiant behaviour of quantum dots — behaviour first described in the context of atoms in a gas over 50 years ago — suggests they can radiatively interact over distances of at least 150 nm.
Spacetime might seem smooth, but it could, at very short length scales, be quantized. Energetic neutrinos from gamma-ray bursts could provide a useful means to investigate further, and probe the nature of quantum gravity.
Ideas of high-energy particle physics have been borrowed for a device that might bring insight into fundamental questions of chemical physics — the molecular synchrotron. A whole number of applications may benefit.
Physicists have long debated whether the 'hidden order' in URu2Si2 is itinerant or localized, and it remains inaccessible to direct external probes. The observation of an overdamped collective mode seems to resolve this outstanding issue.
The first, long-sought evidence for the production of single top quarks, by the weak interaction, has been reported from a sophisticated analysis of a large number of proton–antiproton collisions at the Tevatron.
How shock waves travel through a superfluid provides clues to understanding the deeper nature of Bose–Einstein condensation. An optical analogue that behaves as a pure superfluid could tell us what these clues mean.
Experimental evidence for discontinuous behaviour of the magnetization suggests that ferromagnetic transitions at very low temperatures are different from their high-temperature brethren, for which the phase transitions are usually continuous.
