Correspondence |
Featured
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Correspondence |
Africa: renewables infrastructure avoids stranded assets
- Zhanyun Wang
- & Miriam Diamond
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News & Views |
From the archive
Nature’s pages feature a 1971 report of ancient rock carvings indicating astronomical knowledge, and an 1871 look at alpine mountaineering and glaciers.
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Research Highlight |
A swarm of black holes could explain Galactic fluffiness
Diffuse Milky Way formation might have been depleted by star-hurling black holes.
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Research Highlight |
A graphene cloak keeps artworks’ colours ageless
A layer of carbon atoms preserves a painting’s vibrant hues — and can be applied and removed without damage.
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Nature Podcast |
Food shocks and how to avoid them
Addressing the problem of sudden food scarcity in US cities, and the up-and-coming field of computational social science.
- Shamini Bundell
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Article |
Quantum phases of matter on a 256-atom programmable quantum simulator
A programmable quantum simulator with 256 qubits is created using neutral atoms in two-dimensional optical tweezer arrays, demonstrating a quantum phase transition and revealing new quantum phases of matter.
- Sepehr Ebadi
- , Tout T. Wang
- & Mikhail D. Lukin
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Article |
Quantum simulation of 2D antiferromagnets with hundreds of Rydberg atoms
Programmable quantum simulation of two-dimensional antiferromagnets is achieved with up to 196 neutral atoms, and the capability of the platform is demonstrated on square and triangular arrays.
- Pascal Scholl
- , Michael Schuler
- & Antoine Browaeys
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Article |
r-Process elements from magnetorotational hypernovae
Observations of an extremely metal-poor star suggest that rapidly rotating massive stars with large magnetic fields were a source of r-process elements in the early Universe.
- D. Yong
- , C. Kobayashi
- & B. P. Schmidt
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Article |
Bifunctional nanoprecipitates strengthen and ductilize a medium-entropy alloy
Increased strength and ductility in a medium-entropy alloy of Fe, Ni, Al and Ti is demonstrated using nanoprecipitates that simultaneously hinder phase transformation and block dislocation motion.
- Ying Yang
- , Tianyi Chen
- & Easo P. George
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Article |
Optical manipulation of electronic dimensionality in a quantum material
Two-dimensional electronic states are observed at the induced domain walls of a three-dimensional charge density wave material by manipulating the periodic lattice distortion via femtosecond infrared pulses.
- Shaofeng Duan
- , Yun Cheng
- & Wentao Zhang
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Article |
Supply chain diversity buffers cities against food shocks
An intensity−duration−frequency model linking food shock risk to supply chain diversity in the USA finds that boosting a city’s food supply chain diversity increases the resistance of a city to food shocks of mild to moderate severity.
- Michael Gomez
- , Alfonso Mejia
- & Richard R. Rushforth
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Nature Video |
Why leaky pipes can be better for moving water
Tiny 3D printed structures let water flow through them despite being open to the air
- Ellie Mackay
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Editorial |
The powers and perils of using digital data to understand human behaviour
Computational social science is a powerful research tool. But it needs its different disciplines to find a common language.
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Comment |
Everyone should decide how their digital data are used — not just tech companies
Smartphones, sensors and consumer habits reveal much about society. Too few people have a say in how these data are created and used.
- Jathan Sadowski
- , Salomé Viljoen
- & Meredith Whittaker
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Obituary |
Ei-ichi Negishi (1935–2021)
Organic chemist whose cross-coupling reaction builds many drugs.
- Kit Chapman
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Research Highlight |
Tracking a photon without leaving a trace
Conventional detectors often obliterate photons, but the particles can escape a vacuum-based device unscathed.
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Research Highlight |
Supersonic strikes leave just a dent in this super-light material
Honeycomb-like structure thwarts a projectile travelling as fast as a speeding bullet.
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Nature Index |
Machines learn to unearth new materials
Materials genome initiatives sift big data.
- Neil Savage
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Nature Index |
Ferroelectric materials prompt a rethink of matter
Surprising qualities point to next-generation electronics.
- Chris Woolston
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Nature Index |
How nanotechnology can flick the immunity switch
Nano immuno-engineering shows promise against autoimmune conditions, cancer and allergies.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News & Views |
Programmable capillary action controls fluid flows
A technological platform has been developed in which millimetre-scale cubes are assembled into 3D structures that control capillary action — enabling programmable fluid flows and modelling of a range of fluidic processes.
- Tammi L. van Neel
- & Ashleigh B. Theberge
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Nature Index |
Makers and shakers
Three researchers making a material difference.
- Catherine Armitage
- , Sandy Ong
- & Sian Powell
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Nature Index |
Materials science shows strength
Stuff of hope in the search for solutions to intractable problems.
- Catherine Armitage
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Nature Index |
Birds of paradise reveal a dark secret
Super-black feathers at the interface of biology, photonics and materials science.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Nature Index |
High-performing places in the materials world
Four heavyweights and a rising star, in highlights.
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Nature Index |
High-entropy alloys expand their range
New metal mixes create more efficient catalysts and better jet engines.
- Neil Savage
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Article |
Bilayer Wigner crystals in a transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructure
Optical signatures reveal correlated insulating Wigner crystals—electron solids—in a bilayer of a two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide, MoSe2, with hexagonal boron nitride between the layers.
- You Zhou
- , Jiho Sung
- & Hongkun Park
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Article |
Cellular fluidics
Cellular fluidics provides a platform of unit-cell-based, three-dimensional structures for the deterministic control of multiphase flow, transport and reaction processes.
- Nikola A. Dudukovic
- , Erika J. Fong
- & Eric B. Duoss
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Article |
Demonstration of a trapped-ion atomic clock in space
Operating in space, NASA’s Deep Space Atomic Clock, a trapped-ion clock, is shown to have long-term stability and drift that are an order of magnitude better than current space clocks.
- E. A. Burt
- , J. D. Prestage
- & T. A. Ely
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Article |
A highly magnetized and rapidly rotating white dwarf as small as the Moon
A binary star merger has produced a white dwarf with a spin period of under 7 minutes, a magnetic field of 600 to 900 million gauss and a radius only slightly larger than that of our Moon.
- Ilaria Caiazzo
- , Kevin B. Burdge
- & Maayane T. Soumagnac
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News Round-Up |
Alien view of Earth and deleted coronavirus sequences
The latest science news, in brief.
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Article |
Signatures of Wigner crystal of electrons in a monolayer semiconductor
The signature of a Wigner crystal—the analogue of a solid phase for electrons—is observed via the optical reflection spectrum in a monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide.
- Tomasz Smoleński
- , Pavel E. Dolgirev
- & Ataç Imamoğlu
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Research Highlight |
When was cosmic dawn? Some of the most distant galaxies known hold a clue
Light from the early days of the Universe helps to pin-point when the stars switched on after the Big Bang.
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Editorial |
Lithium-ion batteries need to be greener and more ethical
Batteries are key to humanity’s future — but they come with environmental and human costs, which must be mitigated.
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Article |
Photoinduced copper-catalysed asymmetric amidation via ligand cooperativity
In the presence of three ligands and light, two distinct copper catalysts combine to produce enantioenriched secondary amides from racemic alkyl electrophiles and primary amide nucleophiles.
- Caiyou Chen
- , Jonas C. Peters
- & Gregory C. Fu
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News |
First video and sounds from China’s Mars rover intrigue scientists
Several videos, one with sound, hint at the chance of comparing audio data with that collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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Outlook |
Solar cells that make use of wasted light
The start-up Cambridge Photon Technology is developing photovoltaic materials that take full advantage of the Sun’s spectrum.
- Neil Savage
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Outlook |
Better catalysts from super-fast heating
Start-up company HighT-Tech has developed a technique to make alloys that could improve catalysts or be used to build better batteries. The company is the winner of The Spinoff Prize 2021.
- Neil Savage
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Outlook |
Accelerating the diagnosis of epilepsy with computer modelling
The start-up Neuronostics is using the brain waves of large numbers of people to assess an individual’s risk of seizure disorders more quickly and accurately.
- Eric Bender
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News |
The 2,000 stars where aliens would catch a glimpse of Earth
Scientists searching for extraterrestrial life should narrow their hunt to stars and planetary systems that have an occasional view of Earth as it passes in front of the Sun.
- Alexandra Witze
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News & Views |
Plasmons dragged by drifting electrons
Plasmons are combinations of light and collective electron oscillations. The demonstration that plasmons can be dragged by drifting electrons in the 2D material graphene could lead to advances in optical physics.
- Hugen Yan
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Article |
Fizeau drag in graphene plasmonics
Direct infrared nano-imaging of plasmonic waves in graphene carrying high current density reveals the Fizeau drag of plasmon polaritons by fast-moving quasi-relativistic electrons.
- Y. Dong
- , L. Xiong
- & D. N. Basov
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Article |
Operando optical tracking of single-particle ion dynamics in batteries
The dynamics of ions within a working lithium-ion battery are examined using optical interferometric scattering microscopy, which allows ion transport to be related to phase transitions and microstructural features.
- Alice J. Merryweather
- , Christoph Schnedermann
- & Akshay Rao
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News & Views |
Ion dynamics in battery materials imaged rapidly
An imaging method has been developed that tracks ion transport in functioning battery materials in real time, at submicrometre scales — offering insights into how to design batteries that charge in minutes.
- Aashutosh Mistry
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Article |
A catalysis-driven artificial molecular pump
A molecular-scale pump whose operation is driven by a catalytic process when in the presence of chemical fuel is autonomous, within an operating window, as long as the fuel lasts.
- Shuntaro Amano
- , Stephen D. P. Fielden
- & David A. Leigh
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Article |
Past, present and future stars that can see Earth as a transiting exoplanet
The Gaia database is used to identify stars from which astronomers on orbiting planets could see Earth transiting the Sun in the past, present and future.
- L. Kaltenegger
- & J. K. Faherty
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Article |
Efficient Fizeau drag from Dirac electrons in monolayer graphene
Fizeau drag of plasmon polaritons by an electron flow in strongly biased monolayer graphene is directly observed by exploiting the high electron mobility and slow plasmon propagation of Dirac electrons.
- Wenyu Zhao
- , Sihan Zhao
- & Feng Wang
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News Round-Up |
Mars selfie, Betelgeuse mystery and the impact of journal closure
The latest science news, in brief.
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Nature Podcast |
Quantum compass might help birds 'see' magnetic fields
Researchers isolate the protein thought to help migratory birds navigate, and astronomers pinpoint the stars that could view Earth as an exoplanet.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe