Outlook

Lithium-ion batteries enabled smartphones to flourish. The next innovation will upend transportation and the grid, says George Crabtree.

Electrical grids increasingly depend on intermittent renewable sources. To smooth the supply out, utilities companies are testing alternatives to storing energy in conventional batteries.

Researchers are developing a type of battery that has ten times the power of conventional batteries.

Susumu Tonegawa unlocked the genetic secrets behind antibodies' diverse structures, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1987. Having since moved fields, he tells Keikantse Matlhagela about his latest work on the neuroscience of happy and sad memories.

Elizabeth Blackburn shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for their work on telomeres — the protective caps at the end of chromosomes — and for identifying the enzyme telomerase, which maintains telomere length. Now at the University of California, San Francisco, she offers Elena Tucker an insight into her life inside and outside academia.

François Englert shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with Peter Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that gives mass to subatomic particles. For this work, he collaborated with Robert Brout, who died in 2011. He looks back on his contribution to science with Thifhelimbilu Daphney Bucher.

Richard Roberts shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Sharp for their discoveries of split genes, which contain parts that encode protein, called exons, and gaps between them, called introns. Now chief scientific officer at New England Biolabs based in Ipswich, Massachusetts, Roberts talks to Gijsbert Werner about microbes, genetically modified food and the problem with Nobel prizes.

Bruce Beutler is director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. He shared one half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Jules Hoffmann for their work on the activation of innate immunity; the other half of the prize was awarded to Ralph Steinman. Here, Beutler talks to Christoph Thaiss about biological puzzles and intuition.

Powerful super-resolution microscopes that allow researchers to explore the world at the nanoscale are set to transform our understanding of the cell.

Scientists are fascinated by the biological, social and medical implications of beauty. Here are four of their most pressing questions.

By studying how the brain responds to beauty, researchers hope to understand why we give some people an easier ride or appreciate certain artworks.

Karl Grammer, professor of anthropology at the University of Vienna, has been a pioneer in human attraction and courtship research. He discusses what he and others have learned by studying human beauty from an evolutionary perspective.

Historically, women have been the focus of body-image studies. But as men pay more attention to their appearance, researchers are forming a clearer picture of male self-image.

The rise of genomic and other technologies in cosmetic skincare is leading to products that might improve skin health.

Researchers are probing how brain circuitry goes awry in people with body dysmorphia and how to treat the condition.

Standards for cosmetic surgery are typically based on white ideals of beauty. But the demand for facial procedures by people of all ethnicities is driving a change in practices.

Physicist David Deutsch is considered the founding father of quantum computing. In his 2011 book, The Beginning of Infinity, Deutsch argues that there is such a thing as objective beauty.

In a cut-throat world where only the fittest survive, beauty seems to be a needless expense. But creatures are strutting their stuff in ways that help to perpetuate their species.