Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
The nuclei of naive mouse embryonic stem cells that are transitioning towards differentiation expand when the cells are stretched and contract when they are compressed. What drives this auxetic phenotype is, however, unclear.
Physical cues from the extracellular environment influence the lineage commitment of stem cells. Now, experiments on human mesenchymal stem cells cultured on photodegradable hydrogels show that the cells' fate can also be determined by past physical environments.
Enhancing the temperature at which superconductivity is observed is a long-standing objective for materials scientists. Recent tantalizing experiments suggest a possible route for achieving this.
By embedding organic dyes in a suitably designed optical microcavity it is possible to strongly mix light and matter excitations, forming states known as microcavity polaritons. These hybrid light–matter states are used to demonstrate energy transfer between organic molecules over long distances.
The remarkable properties of a bivalve shell that enable it to protect the animal against its predators could inspire the design of new lightweight armour materials.
A high-throughput approach combining combinatorial deposition of materials with parallel blow-forming speeds up the discovery rate of bulk metallic glasses that can be easily formed into complex shapes.
The demonstration of amplified spontaneous emission from thin films of perovskites could pave the way to solution-processed low-cost lasers that can be easily tuned across the entire visible spectrum.
Nacre-like bulk ceramics with a unique combination of high toughness, strength and stiffness can be produced from brittle constituents by an ice-templating approach.
It is now possible to fabricate high-quality thin films of spin ice materials. At higher temperatures, they exhibit the hallmarks of a regular spin ice, but at lower temperatures their physics deviate significantly from the properties observed in the bulk.
High-shear mixing is now shown to be an effective approach for the exfoliation of large quantities of graphene and other two-dimensional materials, providing a viable route for the industrial scaling of applications based on these layered crystals.
Chloroplasts with extended photosynthetic activity beyond the visible absorption spectrum, and living leaves that perform non-biological functions, are made possible by localizing nanoparticles within plant organelles.
Cracks and defects induced during the transfer of large-area graphene on insulating substrates impair its excellent electronic properties. A defect-free transfer can now be obtained thanks to capillary bridges that anchor the graphene film to the substrate while the underlying growth layer is etched away.
In spite of their promise, practical applications of high-temperature cuprate superconductors have been hard to come by. The development of a method to fabricate round wires of the cuprate system Bi-2212 may begin to change this.
The macroscopic alignment of dilute dispersions of graphene oxide can be controlled, with extremely large optical sensitivity, through the application of weak electric fields.
