Physical sciences articles within Nature

Featured

  • News & Views |

    Colloid particles that form bonds to each other at specific orientations might self-assemble into all sorts of useful materials. The key — and the lock — to such binding has been discovered.

    • Michael J. Solomon

  • News Feature |

    Social scientists have embedded themselves at CERN to study the world's biggest research collaboration. Zeeya Merali reports on a 10,000-person physics project.

    • Zeeya Merali

  • Letter |

    Massive galaxies in the early Universe have been shown to be forming stars at high rates. Probing the properties of individual star-forming regions is beyond the resolution and sensitivity of existing telescopes. Here, however, observations are reported of the galaxy SMMJ2135–0102 at redshift z=2.3259, which has been gravitationally magnified by a factor of 32 by a galaxy cluster lens in the foreground. The physics underlying star formation here is similar to that in local galaxies, but the energetics are very different.

    • A. M. Swinbank
    • , I. Smail
    •  & J. D. Younger

  • News |

    Atomically thin carbon sheets offer bacteria a protective shell in electron microscopes.

    • Geoff Brumfiel

  • Letter |

    Until now, quantum atomic gases and single trapped ions have been treated separately in experiments. Now a hybrid system has been investigated, involving the immersion of a single trapped ion into a Bose–Einstein condensate of neutral atoms. The two systems could be controlled independently and the fundamental interaction processes were studied. Sympathetic cooling of the single ion by the condensate was observed, hinting at the possibility of using these condensates as refrigerators for ion-trap quantum computers.

    • Christoph Zipkes
    • , Stefan Palzer
    •  & Michael Köhl

  • Letter |

    Surface-enhanced Raman scattering is a powerful spectroscopy technique that can be used to study substances down to the level of single molecules. But the practical applications have been limited by the need for metal substrates with roughened surfaces or in the form of nanoparticles. Here a new approach — shell-insulated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy — is described, and its versatility demonstrated with numerous test substances.

    • Jian Feng Li
    • , Yi Fan Huang
    •  & Zhong Qun Tian

  • Letter |

    The physics of thermal diffusion — mass diffusion driven by a temperature gradient — is poorly understood. One obstacle has been that the Soret coefficient (ST, which describes the steady-state result of thermal diffusion) is sensitive to many factors. It is now shown that the difference in ST between isotopes of diffusing elements that are network modifiers is independent of composition and temperature. The findings suggest a theoretical approach for describing thermal diffusion in silicate melts and other complex solutions.

    • F. Huang
    • , P. Chakraborty
    •  & C. E. Lesher

  • Letter |

    The most distant quasars known, at redshifts z ≈ 6, generally have the same properties as lower-redshift quasars, implying that although the Universe was young at z ≈ 6, such quasars are still evolved objects. One z ≈ 6 quasar was shown to have no detectable emission from hot dust, but it was not clear whether it was an outlier. Now, a second quasar without hot-dust emission has been discovered in a sample of 21 z ≈ 6 quasars. Moreover, hot-dust abundance in these quasars builds up as the central black hole grows.

    • Linhua Jiang
    • , Xiaohui Fan
    •  & Fabian Walter

  • Letter |

    Of the more than 400 known exoplanets, about 70 transit their central star, most in small orbits (with periods of around 1 day, for instance). Here, observations are reported of the transit of CoRoT-9b, which orbits with a period of 95.274 days, on a low eccentricity, around a solar-like star. Its relatively large periastron distance yields a 'temperate' photospheric temperature estimated to be between 250 and 430 K, and its interior composition is inferred to be consistent with those of Jupiter and Saturn.

    • H. J. Deeg
    • , C. Moutou
    •  & G. Wuchterl

  • News & Views |

    The golden ratio — an exact 'magic' number often claimed to be observed when taking ratios of distances in ancient and modern architecture, sculpture and painting — has been spotted in a magnetic compound.

    • Ian Affleck

  • News & Views |

    The discovery of two quasars in the distant Universe that apparently have no hot dust in their environments provides evidence that these systems represent the first generation of their family.

    • Giulia Stratta

  • News & Views |

    Gold nanoparticles coated with a thin layer of an oxide allow molecules adsorbed on surfaces as diverse as those of platinum, yeast cells or citrus fruits to be characterized routinely in the laboratory.

    • Martin Moskovits

  • Article |

    Quantum mechanics provides an accurate description of a wide variety of physical systems but it is very challenging to prove that it also applies to macroscopic (classical) mechanical systems. This is because it has been impossible to cool a mechanical mode to its quantum ground state, in which all classical noise is eliminated. Recently, various mechanical devices have been cooled to a near-ground state, but this paper demonstrates the milestone result of a piezoelectric resonator with a mechanical mode cooled to its quantum ground state.

    • A. D. O’Connell
    • , M. Hofheinz
    •  & A. N. Cleland

  • Letter |

    An insulator does not conduct electricity, and so cannot in general be used to transmit an electrical signal. But an insulator's electrons possess spin in addition to charge, and so can transmit a signal in the form of a spin wave. Here a hybrid metal–insulator–metal structure is reported, in which an electrical signal in one metal layer is directly converted to a spin wave in the insulating layer; this wave is then transmitted to the second metal layer, where the signal can be directly recovered as an electrical voltage.

    • Y. Kajiwara
    • , K. Harii
    •  & E. Saitoh

  • Letter |

    Although general relativity underlies modern cosmology, its applicability on cosmological length scales has yet to be stringently tested. Now, at a length scale of tens of megaparsecs, the quantity EG, which combines measures of large-scale gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering, and the growth rate of structure, has been measured to be 0.39±0.06, in agreement with the general relativistic prediction of about 0.4.

    • Reinabelle Reyes
    • , Rachel Mandelbaum
    •  & Robert E. Smith

  • Letter |

    When a shape memory polymer is deformed at a temperature defined by a specific phase transition, the deformed shape is fixed upon cooling, but the original shape can be recovered on reheating. Here the perfluorosulphonic acid ionomer Nafion is shown to exhibit at least four different shapes as a result of its broad reversible phase transition.

    • Tao Xie

  • Letter |

    The presence of gaseous chlorine atom precursors within the troposphere was thought only to occur in marine areas but now nitryl chloride has been found at a distance of 1,400 km from the nearest coastline. A model study shows that the amount of nitryl chloride production in the continental USA alone is similar to previous global estimates for marine regions. A significant fraction of tropospheric chlorine atoms may arise directly from anthropogenic pollutants.

    • Joel A. Thornton
    • , James P. Kercher
    •  & Steven S. Brown

  • Letter |

    Measuring the oscillations of a star can allow the various mixing processes in its interior to be disentangled, through the signature they leave on period spacings in the gravity mode spectrum. Here numerous gravity modes in a young star of about seven solar masses are reported: the mean period spacing enables the extent of the convective core to be determined, and the clear periodic deviation from the mean constrains the location of the chemical transition zone — at about 10 per cent of the radius.

    • Pieter Degroote
    • , Conny Aerts
    •  & Eric Michel

  • News & Views |

    Einstein's theory of general relativity has been tested — and confirmed — on scales far beyond those of our Solar System. But the results don't exclude all alternative theories of gravity.

    • J. Anthony Tyson

  • Books & Arts |

    A proposed reinvention for urban motoring based on ultra-small electric vehicles does not address the bigger environmental or social challenges, finds Daniel Sperling.

    • Daniel Sperling

  • News & Views |

    If evolution has had trouble making effective carbohydrate receptors, what hope do humans have of creating synthetic versions? A method for preparing libraries of such receptors boosts the chances of success.

    • Anthony P. Davis

  • News & Views |

    Unexpected chlorine chemistry in the lowest part of the atmosphere can affect the cycling of nitrogen oxides and the production of ozone, and reduce the lifetime of the greenhouse gas methane.

    • Roland von Glasow

  • News Feature |

    Chemists looking to create complex self-assembling nanostructures are turning to DNA. Katharine Sanderson looks at the science beneath the fold.

    • Katharine Sanderson

  • News |

    General relativity fits survey observations but there's still room for its rivals.

    • Zeeya Merali

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Physical sciences across other nature.com journals