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Sound-powered 3D display you can feel

A prototype system uses sound to create a moving 3D image that can be seen from any angle. The volumetric display uses 256 tiny speakers to move a tiny foam bead so fast that it appears as a larger object floating in space. The same ultrasound speakers that create the image can also generate audio and tactile sensations.

Nature | 8 min read (with video)

Reference: Nature paper

Hayabusa2 is bringing home an asteroid

The first spacecraft to release rovers on an asteroid is heading home. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s six-year mission has achieved a series of risky and unprecedented operations since Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu in June 2018. It was also the first to collect a sample of an asteroid’s subsurface material, after bombarding the surface to produce a crater. The probe is due to arrive back on Earth at the end of 2020, where a re-entry capsule will deliver its samples to the eager scientists on the ground.

Nature | 2 min read

Antibiotic-resistant infections threaten US

Antibiotic-resistant infections kill one person in the United States every 15 minutes, according to a new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The good news is that this marks a drop of nearly 30% since 2013, thanks to improvements in how hospitals respond to the spread of resistant germs. The bad news is that superbugs are on the rise outside hospitals, and drug resistance is spreading more often between different germs. The CDC names five microbes as urgent threats, including drug-resistant gonorrhoea.

The Washington Post | 8 min read

Reference: Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019 report

Features & opinion

How to avert catastrophe in Africa’s Sahel

People are already living on the edge in the Sahel region of Africa — world governments need to act now to keep the situation from worsening, say five researchers who study the ecologically vulnerable area in Africa. Their analyses of the probable impacts of rising population and climate change indicate how to avoid an increase in conflict, terrorism, famines and mass displacement. They call for investment in girls’ education, laws against child marriage, more access to contraception, better agricultural techniques and improved security in the region.

Nature | 13 min read

How to welcome an international labmate

Health-science researcher Lara Pivodic has worked in several countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. She shares her first-hand knowledge of the difference made by simple things such as saying ‘welcome’, seating a new colleague near other labmates and offering help with practical matters.

Nature | 5 min read

Neutrinos deliver mathematical surprise

It’s “too good to be true”, thought Fields medal-winning mathematician Terence Tao when he opened a letter from three physicists suggesting they had come up with a mathematical relationship so “short and simple — it should have been in textbooks already”. Stephen Parke, Xining Zhang and Peter Denton had found the broadly applicable formula while grappling with the complexities of neutrino behaviour. The identity’s ability to compute eigenvectors from eigenvalues alone could open new doors in both physics and pure mathematics.

Quanta | 8 min read

Reference: arXiv preprint 1 & arXiv preprint 2

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The ethics code and the rooibos agreement are small steps towards a bigger demand: that Indigenous people, especially those whose ancestors lost lives, land and livelihoods during more than a century of exploitation, are treated fairly and as equals.”

There are lessons for all of us in South Africa’s rooibos-tea compensation agreement, says a Nature Editorial.