Reviews & Analysis

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  • Clever manipulation of electrons has enabled scientists to change a key property of light emitted by a device using electrically controlled magnetization. The method could lead to stable and energy-efficient information transfer.

    • Satoshi Hiura
    News & Views
  • Reconstructions of the strength of a powerful current that circles the South Pole reveal that it has undergone no long-term change in the past five million years, even though Earth cooled substantially over that time.

    • Natalie J. Burls
    News & Views
  • Depleting an expanding pool of aberrant stem cells in aged mice using antibody therapy has been shown to rebalance blood cell production, diminish age-associated inflammation and strengthen acquired immune responses.

    • Yasar Arfat T. Kasu
    • Robert A. J. Signer
    News & Views
  • A smart adhesive patch that wicks sweat away from electronics embedded in its centre offers comfortable and reliable sensing of the wearer’s biometrics or environment without the risk of perspiration damaging the devices.

    • Yifan Rao
    • Nanshu Lu
    News & Views
  • Humans and other social animals are highly adept at learning by observing how others interact with the environment, especially when identifying potential sources of danger. In mice, a specific brain region acts as an information-processing hub that distinguishes between observed and directly experienced fear, and signals different behavioural responses accordingly.

    Research Briefing
  • Humans’ effect on the polar ice sheets is slowing Earth’s rotation, posing challenges for its alignment with the official time standard. Two researchers discuss the science behind the slowdown and the impact it has on timekeeping.

    • Patrizia Tavella
    • Jerry X. Mitrovica
    News & Views Forum
  • A population of neurons that engages mechanisms of the innate immune system during memory formation has been uncovered in mice. Surprisingly, inflammatory signalling might pave the way for long-term memory.

    • Benjamin A. Kelvington
    • Ted Abel
    News & Views
  • What effects will climate change have on insect communities? Analyses of data collected over decades robustly document consequences specific to bee populations, and this evidence might aid future conservation efforts.

    • Nicole E. Miller-Struttmann
    News & Views
  • Organelles called lysosomes fuse with cargo-carrying vesicles and degrade the cargo molecules. How lysosomes maintain their size despite constant vesicle fusion was unclear, but now factors that aid organelle fission have been found.

    • Shilpa Gopan
    • Thomas J. Pucadyil
    News & Views
  • Cutting-edge communication (6G and beyond) will rely on precise time control of large amounts of wirelessly transferred information. To achieve this precision, a ‘quasi-true time delay’ chip has been designed that packs as much time delay as possible into a tiny area using 3D waveguides whose length can be varied as required.

    Research Briefing
  • Complex magnetic structures called skyrmions have been generated on a nanometre scale and controlled electrically — a promising step for fast, energy-efficient computer hardware systems that can store large amounts of data.

    • Qiming Shao
    News & Views
  • The central nervous system’s astrocyte cells respond to injury and disease. The finding that they form molecular memories of certain responses, and that these modify inflammatory signalling, sheds light on autommunity.

    • Michael V. Sofroniew
    News & Views
  • Understanding the factors that drive formation of particular types of cancer can aid efforts to develop better diagnostics or treatments. The identification of a bacterial subspecies with a connection to colon cancer has clinical relevance.

    • Cynthia L. Sears
    • Jessica Queen
    News & Views
  • An array of robots has been set up so that pushes between them produce movements that do not conform to the usual laws of motion. Fascinating behaviour emerges from these interactions: wave phenomena known as solitons.

    • Sebastian D. Huber
    • Kukka-Emilia Huhtinen
    News & Views
  • The quality of a bird’s song during courtship can influence whether a male is selected as a mate. An innovative approach using machine learning offers a way to analyse the characteristics of birdsong.

    • Kate T. Snyder
    • Nicole Creanza
    News & Views
  • For a century, scientists pondered whether bird flight evolved by animals gliding down from trees or by creatures running and flapping from the ground up. A landmark 1974 paper reset the debate to focus on the evolution of the flight stroke instead.

    • Kevin Padian
    News & Views