News & Comment

Understanding something of the complexity of a financial network is one thing, influencing the behaviour of that system is another. But new tools from network science define a notion of 'controllability' that, coupled with 'centrality', could prove useful to economists and financial regulators.

Our developing scientific understanding of complex networks is being usefully applied in a wide set of financial systems. What we've learned from the 2008 crisis could be the basis of better management of the economy — and a means to avert future disaster.

The Physical Sciences–Oncology Centers in the US bring together scientists from all backgrounds to tackle some of the most important questions in cancer research.

The long-term promises of quantum simulators are far-reaching. The field, however, also needs clearly defined short-term goals.

Reductionism, as a paradigm, is expired, and complexity, as a field, is tired. Data-based mathematical models of complex systems are offering a fresh perspective, rapidly developing into a new discipline: network science.

In his tragically short life, Alan Turing helped define what computing machines are capable of, and where they reach inherent limits. His legacy is still felt every day, in areas ranging from computational complexity theory to cryptography and quantum computing.

The search for the Higgs boson could soon prove successful. Although the particle bears the name of a single physicist, many more were involved in devising the theory behind it — so which of them should share a potential Nobel Prize?

Fifty years ago, Abdus Salam envisaged a 'world centre' for theorists. Now the institute that he founded is adapting to a changing world and to changing ways of doing science.

A school on computational materials science that drew expert teachers and talented participants marks a new approach to the development of research in Africa.

Cell biophysics sheds some new light on cancer by approaching this complex problem from a materials science perspective.

Astronomy is becoming 'big science'. Although the transformation brings the experimental clout to answer the biggest questions, it also carries risks for the field's future.

The moment of conception of the geometric phase can be pinpointed precisely, but related ideas had been formulated before, in various guises. Not less varied were the ramifications that became clear once the concept was identified formally.

It has been 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the wake of the upheaval, the East German society was radically remodelled. For physicists, it brought new opportunities — and fresh challenges.

The design and synthesis of novel materials is the rubric of both haute cuisine and materials physics — and in both there is great pleasure in creating and sharing the results of a new recipe.

With the increasingly urgent need to find solutions to the impending energy crisis, there is growing interest within the fusion community in revisiting the concept of the fusion–fission hybrid reactor. But how soon could such reactors be realized, and could they meet the challenges of the coming century?

Online tools for collaboration and sharing information have changed the routine of scientists. But the revolution that will turn scientific information from a collection of files into an active system has just begun.

Science can explain many things in the natural world. Although the laws of gravity, the origin of galaxies and the Universe are commonly accepted, the theory of evolution is still questioned by some. There are clear reasons for why that is, and why it need not be so.

The modern evolutionary synthesis, which marries Darwin's theory of natural selection with Mendel's genetics, was developed around the same time as quantum mechanics. Is there any connection between the two?

Economic theory failed to envisage even the possibility of a financial crisis like the present one. A new foundation is needed that takes into account the interplay between heterogeneous agents.

The discovery of a new class of high-temperature superconductors based on iron tests the limits of current theoretical and computational tools for the understanding of strongly correlated systems.