Physical sciences articles within Nature

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  • News & Views |

    Catastrophic breakage of brittle materials such as ceramics is usually triggered by the rapid spreading of cracks. Computer simulations have now cracked the three-dimensional details of this process.

    • Markus J. Buehler
    •  & Zhiping Xu

  • News & Views |

    Superconductivity has been discovered in the materials that form when alkali metals react with a solid hydrocarbon. This is the first new class of organic, high-temperature superconductor in a decade.

    • Matthew J. Rosseinsky
    •  & Kosmas Prassides

  • Opinion |

    The US Congress should discourage efforts to advance the technology to make fuel for nuclear reactors, say Francis Slakey and Linda R. Cohen — the risks outweigh the benefits.

    • Francis Slakey
    •  & Linda R. Cohen

  • Books & Arts |

    Paul Davies's latest book argues that the search for intelligent life beyond Earth should be expanded. Chris McKay considers why we should look closer to home — perhaps even in our DNA.

    • Chris McKay

  • News |

    Sound-based lasers could improve imaging and electronics.

    • Geoff Brumfiel

  • Letter |

    WASP-12b is a planet of 1.4 Jupiter masses that orbits at a mean distance of only 3.1 stellar radii from its star; its orbital period is 1.1 days, and its radius (1.79 times that of Jupiter) is unexpectedly large. An analysis of its properties now reveals that the planet is losing mass to its host star at a rate of ∼10−7 Jupiter masses per year, and that dissipation of the star's tidal perturbation in the planet's convective envelope provides the energy source for its large volume.

    • Shu-lin Li
    • , N. Miller
    •  & Jonathan J. Fortney

  • Letter |

    In principle, it is possible to simulate some astrophysical phenomena inside the highly controlled environment of an atomic physics laboratory: previous work on the thermodynamics of a two-component Fermi gas (a system suited for such studies) led to thermodynamic quantities averaged over the trap. Now a general experimental method is reported that yields the equation of state of a uniform gas, providing new physical insights and enabling a detailed comparison with existing theories.

    • S. Nascimbène
    • , N. Navon
    •  & C. Salomon

  • Letter |

    Many technological materials are intentionally 'doped' with foreign elements to impart new and desirable properties, a classic example being the doping of semiconductors to tune their electronic behaviour. Here lanthanide doping is used to control the growth of nanocrystals, allowing for simultaneous tuning of the size, crystallographic phase and optical properties of the hybrid material.

    • Feng Wang
    • , Yu Han
    •  & Xiaogang Liu

  • News & Views |

    The finding that the normal phase of an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms in the strongly interacting regime is close to a Fermi liquid isn't quite what theorists expected for these systems.

    • Yong-il Shin

  • News & Views |

    A mathematical method has been developed that distinguishes between the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and those of his imitators. But can the approach be used to spot imitations of works by any artist?

    • Bruno A. Olshausen
    •  & Michael R. DeWeese

  • News |

    Nanowires growing from bacteria might link up distant chemical reactions in sediments.

    • Katharine Sanderson

  • News |

    Catastrophic failure that caused accelerator shutdown was not a freak accident, says project physicist.

    • Geoff Brumfiel

  • News |

    Astrophysicists ponder whether ultrahigh-energy particles really do come from the centre of galaxies.

    • Eric Hand

  • Letter |

    One of the central predictions of general relativity is that a clock in a gravitational potential well runs more slowly than a similar clock outside the well. This effect, known as gravitational redshift, has been measured using clocks on a tower, an aircraft and a rocket, but here, laboratory experiments based on quantum interference of atoms are shown to produce a much more precise measurement.

    • Holger Müller
    • , Achim Peters
    •  & Steven Chu

  • Letter |

    Type Ia supernovae are thought to be associated with the thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars, but the nuclear runaway that leads to the explosion could occur through two different pathways with different X-ray signatures. The X-ray flux from six nearby elliptical galaxies and galaxy bulges is now observed to reveal that it is a factor of about 30–50 less than predicted by the accretion scenario, where a white dwarf accumulates material from a companion star.

    • Marat Gilfanov
    •  & Ákos Bogdán

  • Letter |

    It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. However, the size of the emitting zone and the location of this region relative to the central supermassive black hole are poorly understood. Here, the coincidence of a γ-ray flare with a dramatic change of optical polarization angle is reported, providing evidence for co-spatiality of optical and γ-ray emission regions and indicating a highly ordered jet magnetic field.

    • A. A. Abdo
    • , M. Ackermann
    •  & M. Sikora

  • Letter |

    For the first billion years or so of the Earth's history, there may have been whole-mantle convection, but after this period differentiation of the Earth's mantle has been controlled by solid-state convection. Many trace elements — known as 'incompatible elements' — preferentially partition into low-density melts and are concentrated into the crust, but half of these incompatible elements should be hidden in the Earth's interior. It is now suggested that a by-product of whole-mantle convection is deep and hot melting, resulting in the generation of dense liquids that sank into the lower mantle.

    • Cin-Ty A. Lee
    • , Peter Luffi
    •  & John Hernlund

  • Letter |

    T lymphocytes, which are an integral part of most adaptive immune responses, recognize foreign antigens through the binding of antigenic peptide–major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) molecules on other cells to specific T-cell antigen receptors (TCRs). Using single-molecule microscopy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer, the kinetics of TCR–pMHC binding are now measured in situ, revealing accelerated kinetics and increased affinity when compared with solution measurements.

    • Johannes B. Huppa
    • , Markus Axmann
    •  & Mark M. Davis

  • Authors |

    X-rays yield clues to the evolution of a yardstick supernova.

  • News & Views |

    A technique used primarily to study fundamental issues in quantum mechanics has now been shown to have promise as a powerful practical tool for making ultra-precise measurements.

    • Aephraim M. Steinberg

  • News & Views |

    In some galaxies, matter falling onto a supermassive black hole is ejected in narrow jets moving at close to the speed of light. New observations provide insight into the workings of these cosmic accelerators.

    • Andy Young

  • News Feature |

    As hundreds of US astronomers draft their latest decadal wish list of new projects, Nature took a short-cut by convening a small survey around a dinner table. Eric Hand listens in.

    • Eric Hand

  • News |

    Twisting vortices seen in fireballs could unravel matter-antimatter conundrum.

    • Eric Hand

  • Letter |

    Stars form from cold molecular interstellar gas, which is relatively rare in the local Universe, such that galaxies like the Milky Way form only a few new stars per year. However, typical massive galaxies in the distant Universe formed stars much more rapidly, suggesting that young galaxies were more rich in molecular gas. The results of a survey of molecular gas in samples of typical massive star-forming galaxies when the Universe was 40% and 24% of its current age now reveal that distant star-forming galaxies were indeed gas rich.

    • L. J. Tacconi
    • , R. Genzel
    •  & B. Weiner

  • Letter |

    The difference between the mass of an atom and the sum of its building blocks (the binding energy) is a manifestation of Einstein's famous relation E = mc2. Superheavy elements have been observed, but our present knowledge of the binding energy of these nuclides is based only on the detection of their decay products, although they represent the gateway to the predicted 'island of stability'. Here, direct mass measurements of trans-uranium nuclides are reported, providing reliable anchor points en route to the island of stability.

    • M. Block
    • , D. Ackermann
    •  & C. Weber

  • Letter |

    Ferroelectrics are electro-active materials that can store and switch their polarity, sense temperature changes, interchange electric and mechanical functions, and manipulate light. Subtle changes in the topology of certain chemical bonds have long been identified as a possible route for achieving ferroelectricity in organic molecular crystals. Ferroelectricity above room temperature is now demonstrated by applying an electric field to coherently align the molecular polarities in crystalline croconic acid.

    • Sachio Horiuchi
    • , Yusuke Tokunaga
    •  & Yoshinori Tokura

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