Volume 1 Issue 5, May 2019

The percentage of women in post-graduate physics positions has stalled just below 20%. The most precipitous drop in women’s representation occurs between high school and university; however, women at all career stages struggle with ongoing cultural burdens and obstacles.

Data show that apart from their prize-winning work, the careers of Nobel laureates follow the same patterns as those of the majority of scientists.

Three studies in Nature Astronomy uncover unexpected atmospheric and geological phenomena on Saturn’s moon Titan.

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration has released images and data showing the dark shadow of the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy Messier 87. This release is the result of years of development in instrumentation and data processing.

Layered black phosphorus and its isoelectronic group IV monochalcogenides have distinctive physical properties arising from their unusual crystal symmetries. This Review discusses some of the interesting physical phenomena, possible device applications and future research directions for this group of materials.

The brain is the quintessential complex system, boasting incredible feats of cognition and supporting a wide range of behaviours. Physics has much to offer in the quest to distil the brain’s complexity to a number of cogent organizing principles.

The knowledge of local structures of non-crystalline materials is of fundamental importance in the understanding of their physical properties. This Review describes recent advances in local structural analysis methods, which shed new light on mysterious phenomena in liquids and glasses.

Synthetic dimensions provide a way to artificially engineer extra spatial dimensions through other degrees of freedom. We review how synthetic dimensions have emerged as a promising tool for quantum simulations of topological lattice models in atomic, molecular and optical systems.