News & Comment

2015 promises to be a year for celebrating important discoveries in physics — an apt way to mark the International Year of Light. And, after ten years in print, Nature Physics looks forward to its own anniversary.

As the debate on immigration in the UK becomes increasingly visceral, British science risks being caught in the crossfire.

Many people around the world will remember 2014 as the year Brazil hosted the football World Cup. But for Brazil's science communities, the decisions made by the new government could leave scars much deeper than the semi-final defeat.

Increases in governmental funding for research are outmatched by the swelling ranks of scientists competing for grants. Physicists are starting to look for creative alternatives to complement their funding.

If Scotland votes to leave the United Kingdom, will the independent nation maintain its level of science funding?

As the ninth year of Nature Physics draws to a close, we say goodbye to our launching Chief Editor, Alison Wright, and welcome her successor, Andrea Taroni, to the team.

Crystallography has evolved into a vast, multidisciplinary field — but it has enduring significance for physics, and should remain a fixture in university curricula.

Helium has become a precious resource and its supply must be managed with care.

Datasets can now be published, shared — and cited — in Scientific Data.

Budget cuts to Australia's national science agency may have long-term effects on the country's commitment to radio-astronomy science.

Will government intervene if private-sector investment conflicts with national research interests?

Half a century on, the Kondo effect continues to inspire.

A spectacular result for inflationary cosmology needs independent confirmation.

An ambitious programme to achieve power generation from nuclear fusion is making some progress, at last.

ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has begun the next phase of its ambitious mission to land a probe on the nucleus of a comet, and ride with the comet towards the Sun.