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A plasma-based device is set to challenge particle accelerators that generate high-quality light pulses, with evidence that the cheaper plasma platform can run at competitive repetition rates.
Recent theoretical and experimental progress in identifying and understanding magnetic topological materials is reviewed, highlighting the antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 and the ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal Co3Sn2S2, and future research directions are discussed.
A quantum device uses ultracold atoms to sense gravitational changes that can detect a tunnel under a city street. Here, scientists discuss the advance from the viewpoints of quantum sensing and geophysics.
Luminous bursts of radio emission are linked to highly magnetized neutron stars known as magnetars. Now, bursts have been detected from a globular star cluster, an environment thought to be devoid of magnetars.
Archaeologists have various hypotheses for how populations changed in Africa about 50,000 years ago, during the Later Stone Age transition. Now, the earliest available ancient-DNA sequences from sub-Saharan Africa reveal a complex Late Pleistocene population structure, pointing to large shifts in human movement and in patterns of social interaction.
Messenger RNA from the gene UNC13A is misprocessed in people who have neurodegenerative diseases known as ALS and FTD. The discovery could explain the disease risk associated with variants in this gene.
Lung bacteria modulate the activity of immune cells in the central nervous system in a rodent model of autoimmunity. This finding might shed light on the neuroinflammation associated with multiple sclerosis.
Two-dimensional materials have been restricted to systems in which strong chemical bonds hold atoms together in sheets. Now, 2D materials consisting of molecules linked by weak non-covalent bonds have been peeled from crystals.
When mouse pups first open their eyes, what they see shapes neuronal connectivity. A study shows that this visual experience has cell-type-specific effects, acting only on a subset of malleable neurons.
Climate policies and greenhouse-gas emissions for the twenty-first century are modelled as the result of coupled feedback effects in the social, political and energy systems. Our models suggest that climate policies will increase in ambition and associated emissions reductions will probably accelerate, resulting in warming of 2 °C to 3 °C above 1880–1910 levels by 2100.
The torus of dust surrounding a quasar — a very luminous supermassive black hole that accretes matter from its surroundings — has now been captured with high-resolution infrared imaging.
Night-time is usually a crucial period when fires lose energy, limiting their size and severity, and helping people to control their spread. But rapid night-time warming over the past several decades, combined with global increases in fire intensity at night, suggest that the naturally occurring brakes on fires are weakening.
Tests of relativity once required accurate clocks separated by thousands of kilometres. Optical techniques have now made such tests possible in an atomic cluster measuring no more than one millimetre in size.
The concept of 'Embodied Energy'—in which the components of a robot or device both store energy and provide a mechanical or structural function—is put forward, along with specific robot-design principles.
Understanding factors that lead to the development of multiple sclerosis might aid efforts to develop new therapies. Clinical data now implicate a viral culprit and immune-system dysfunction as underlying factors in this condition.
A method for isolating and analysing the elusive cells of the blood–brain barrier is used to map the expression of genes in the blood vessels of the human brain. Unravelling the molecular basis of this vasculature expands our understanding of overall brain health, disease and treatment.
Certain patterns of mutations occur frequently in cancer. The culprit behind one mutational signature is now shown to be a cellular enzyme with the mundane role of relieving stress in supercoiled DNA.
