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A paper in Science Advances shows that the classic picture of sperm cells moving via symmetrical side-to-side wiggling is an artefact of 2D imaging — the actual motion is far more complex.
The Solar system is chaotic, making its long-term future hard to predict. A paper in Physical Review Letters shows that help may come in the form of instantons, more commonly used in statistical mechanics and gauge field theories.
Over the past decade, several X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facilities have been constructed and started operation worldwide. New, high-repetition XFELs are expected to open to users in the next 5 years.
Twenty-five years ago a paper in Science reported the first observation of the exotic state of matter predicted in the 1920s by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein: a Bose–Einstein condensate.
Analysis of citation behaviours in neuroscience indicate that papers led by men are cited more than would be expected based on other characteristics; the discrepancy is most prominent in the citation behaviours of men and is getting worse over time.
Two papers in Nature report strong coupling between photons and free, unbound electrons. This opens up the possibility for higher resolution, ultrafast imaging using lower energy and less-destructive electron beams.
Twenty-five years ago, a paper by Ignacio Cirac and Peter Zoller turned quantum computing from a bold theoretical idea to an experimental race to build an actual device. Today, engineering challenges remain, but first-generation practical quantum computers seem tangible.
Clouds of bubbles in low-gravity environments behave differently from those on Earth, owing to their reduced buoyancy. A paper in Soft Matter reports a study of the behaviour of bubble clouds in a vessel in freefall.
A Nature Astronomy paper finds that distributing peer review amongst grant applicants, aided by a machine-learning algorithm, can lead to more democratic decisions and provide more detailed feedback.
A paper in Communications Physics catalogues the swarming behaviour of Bacillus subtilis as a function of the colony density and the cell aspect ratio, contributing to the picture of how physical properties of cells affect their motion in groups.
An Advanced Materials paper presents a new type of device that generates polarized single photons without the need for high magnetic fields or cryogenic temperatures.
Experiments published in Physical Review Letters on the separation dependence of gravitational attraction find results consistent with Newton’s law of gravitation for separations between 52 μm and 3 mm.
As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to grow around the world, physicists — many of whom rely on international travel and collaborations — are adapting.
Although the ultimate fate of the the International Linear Collider, a future 250 GeV linear accelerator based on superconducting radiofrequency technology, is yet to be decided, research and development efforts are proceeding undeterred.
Over the next 5 years the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will be mapping 35 million galaxies and 2.4 million quasars trying to uncover the mystery of dark energy.
