Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2024

Orit Peleg describes how a blend of models and experiments are revealing new insights about the intricate physics of firefly swarms.

Women and people of colour are underrepresented in physics in many parts of the world, to the detriment of the field. How do academics’ beliefs about the role of ‘brilliance’ in career success contribute to these representation gaps, and what can be done to address them?

Connie Potter and Rob Appleby, editors of Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN — an anthology of short science fiction stories — share how they brought creative writers, scientists and engineers to work together on this book.

A paper in Nature Photonics uses ambient air to deflect the path of high-power laser beams.

A paper in Physical Review Letters identifies topological features in the phonon spectrum of graphene.

A paper in Nature Communications reports experiments and simulations of spherical particles that help show how finite numbers of spheres pack in practice.

A paper in Physical Review X reports a new, faster, algorithm for Metropolis Monte Carlo simulations of systems with long-range interactions.

No sign of sterile neutrinos was found in the latest, and most extensive, analysis done on data taken by the STEREO experiment and yet, the case is not closed.

The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN used data from 13 TeV proton–proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider to observe for the first time entanglement between a pair of top quarks.

Advances in superheavy element studies providing insight into the nuclear and atomic structure and the chemical behaviour of these exotic short-lived systems will help push to the limit of the periodic table of elements and revise the concept of the island of stability.

This Review categorizes the physics of many different light-based 3D printing modalities and expounds on the light–matter interactions required for the creation of (multi-)material 3D structures. An outlook is provided regarding key printing performance parameters and future directions.

Complex biological, social and engineering systems operate through intricate connectivity patterns. Understanding their robustness and resilience against disturbances is crucial for applications. This Review addresses systemic breakdown, cascading failures and potential interventions, highlighting the importance of research at the crossroad of statistical physics and machine learning.

Understanding vortex pinning in high-temperature superconducting materials is crucial to optimizing their properties. This Technical Review analyses the impact of growth method on vortex microstructure.