Cars that drive themselves may one day improve road safety by reducing human error – and hopefully deaths by accidents too. However, the hardware and software behind the technology opens up a range of opportunities to hackers, as Stephen Ornes finds out

COVID-19 has clobbered the global economy, which is why – argues James McKenzie – innovation is so vital for business success

Four women have been awarded a new student fellowship that seeks to promote diversity in physics. The Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund, awarded by the Institute of Physics (IOP), is designed to help PhD students from groups currently under-represented in physics.

In more lavatory news, NASA has asked the public to help design a toilet that astronauts can use when they are back on the Moon – currently scheduled for the mid-2020s.

For the past 22 years, physicist Corey Gray has worked at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory in Hanford, Washington. He spoke to Tushna Commissariat about building LIGO, the big detection, inspiring the next generation of Indigenous physicists, and having a healthy work-life balance

Without mechanical vibrations, a modern car wouldn’t get far down the road – in fact it wouldn’t start. David R Andrews examines the role of sound and ultrasound in fuel injection and parking sensors

The European particle-physics strategy update proposes further work on a huge 100 km circular collider at CERN, but a final decision to build it will not be made until 2026, as Michael Banks reports

A Bose–Einstein condensate has been created on the International Space Station, which could pave the way for an accurate measurement of gravity, as Edwin Cartlidge reports

The proportion of grants from UK research councils that are awarded to principal investigators who identify as an ethnic minority has remained static over the past five years.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined why the authority of science is so important – and how it’s so easy to lose. Robert P Crease explains

J Doyne Farmer – a physicist who has studied the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – talks to Benjamin Skuse about lockdown easing and the prospects of financial recovery

This special issue examines some of the physics-based technology in modern cars

The UK government has committed to meet any funding shortfalls that may occur if the UK “does not associate” with the European Union’s upcoming research programme, Horizon Europe.

The UK government has announced new measures to help protect universities from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Breakthrough Listen is an initiative searching for evidence of technological life by surveying one million nearby stars in the Milky Way as well as 100 nearby galaxies.

Researchers in China have used a technique known as X-ray ghost imaging (XGI) to obtain spectral images of an object using a single-pixel detector.

Being a racecar driver in NASCAR is a dangerous job. One small mistake can send cars flying, cause multi-car crashes and, in some cases, be fatal. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky explores the science behind some of the features in NASCAR that are designed to keep the drivers safe

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) – the world’s largest radio telescope, planned to be built in Australia and southern Africa – is anticipating a six-month delay towards establishing the SKA Observatory due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Satellite operators could be doing more harm than good by shutting down their systems whenever a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun is forecast to arrive at Earth.

"It's a dangerous world out there," writes Ellen Prager in her latest book Dangerous Earth: What We Wish We Knew About Volcanoes, Hurricanes, Climate Change, Earthquakes, and More

You Look Like a Thing and I Love You is a deft, informative and often screamingly funny primer on the ways that machine learning can (and often does) go wrong. And by "go wrong", author Janelle Shane isn't talking about machines becoming hyper-intelligent and overthrowing the puny humans who invented them.

Most readers of Physics World will be familiar with the works of astronomer Carl Sagan, and the writer and producer Ann Druyan. Following in their footsteps, daughter Sasha Sagan has now penned her first book, For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals and Reflections for Finding Wonder

After tackling astronomy and laser physics last month, get ready to try these fiendish quantum questions, test your Nobel knowledge, and practise your tune trivia. Answers to both parts of the quiz will be published next month.

An effective contact-and-trace system, the widespread use of masks, and researchers working in small groups.

Researchers have revisited a classic problem in the animal kingdom: why can penguins poo such large distances?

What a difference a few months can make. When science historian Naomi Oreskes was writing her latest book Why Trust Science? a large part of the context seemed to be climate change.

With electric cars set to enter the mainstream over the next few years, Susan Curtis investigates the new charging solutions that will be needed to power what are effectively large batteries on wheels

Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system that could reduce the amount of time that school and university physics teachers spend marking student assignments.

Physicists in China are beginning to return to the lab following the COVID-19 pandemic, but many of their projects face delays, as Ling Xin reports

Niki Bell calls on physicists to insist that exam boards integrate modern discoveries into the education system

In response to Rachel Brazil’s feature article “Fighting flat-Earth theory” (July pp35–39), in which she explores why the “shocking” notion that the Earth is not a sphere is increasingly taking hold and how the physics community should best respond.

We assume you always close the toilet lid before flushing – but if you don’t, here’s a very good reason to do so.

Propagating hydrogen flames can spread efficiently to access new fuel by breaking into fractal-like patterns. That is according to researchers in Spain and Germany who say their results could provide important new information in designing storage cells for hydrogen fuel ( Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 174501).

Come Dine with Me is the brilliant British TV show in which amateur home cooks take turns hosting a dinner party for each other throughout the course of a week. Now two physicists have analysed results from 2268 episodes.

Laboratory sessions that are designed to emphasize and teach experimentation skills lead to gender imbalances among students, with men and women taking on different roles.

There is something deeply therapeutic about colouring in pictures and it has certainly helped many people during lockdown. If you fancy a bit of physics-based colouring in...

Physicists will find it shocking, but there are plenty of people around the world who genuinely believe the Earth is flat. Rachel Brazil explores why such views are increasingly taking hold and how the physics community should best respond

To understand quantum physics – as far as anyone does – requires a lot of imagination, and a fair bit of philosophy. If you examine whether, say, the Many Worlds interpretation is correct, that opens up discussions of determinism versus free choice. Proving which quantum physics interpretation is true could have huge implications for humanity. That is what the characters in new TV show Devs are attempting

NASA has announced that the delay-hit James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will fail to meet its launch target of March 2021.

A long-standing debate about what lies at the heart of neutron stars might soon be cleared up if a new analysis reconciling observational data and theory is vindicated, as Edwin Cartlidge reports

The Planck mission gave us the most precise value of the Hubble constant to date by measuring the cosmic microwave background. But studies made since using different methods provide different values. Keith Cooper investigates the discrepancies and asks what it might mean for cosmology

NASA’s troubled space telescope, WFIRST, has been renamed the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in honour of NASA’s former chief of astronomy.

The article about the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope (June pp12–13) should have said that the spherical aberration from which it suffered was caused by the curvature of its mirror not bringing light to focus all at the same point.

South Africa has become the third country after the Netherlands and Italy to ratify the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) convention.

Astronomers say they have witnessed the distinctive twist in the disc of gas and dust surrounding a newly formed star that likely indicates that a new planet is forming.

Robert P Crease reports on your latest work in the exciting new scientific field he discovered

A bipartisan group of US senators and representatives has introduced legislation in Congress that would significantly change the operation of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

In response to Alec Beardsell’s letter “Power predictions” (May p26), which was a response to Norman Wilson’s letter “Power problems” (April p24), which said that Dave Elliot (January p19) presented an over-optimistic view of the capabilities of renewable energy.

Atmospheric scientists have a key role to play in understanding the size and trajectories of aerosols carrying the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease COVID-19.

In response to the May 2020 special issue devoted to the challenges of plastic waste and to James McKenzie’s column “Shipping carbon-free” (April p21), in which he argues that while air travel is bad for the environment, we should decarbonize sea travel too.

Jim Yeck has been named project director for the upcoming $2bn Electron–Ion Collider (EIC), which is to be built at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York.

Harry Collins, Bill Barnes and Riccardo Sapienza warn against a wholesale shift to virtual workshops and conferences following the COVID-19 pandemic

Researchers, scientific societies and publishers took part in a one-day strike last month to consider how to combat racism and discrimination in science, as Peter Gwynne and Matin Durrani report

David Reitze, executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, talks to Richard Blaustein about how gravitational-wave observations are set for a multi-detector boost

In response to Robert P Crease’s column “This is the critical point” (May pp21–22), in which he looks back at 20 years of Critical Point articles, and worries that physicists still don’t realize why the humanities are so important.

Would you pay £339 for a USB stick that claims to offer “protection” from 5G mobile networks? That’s what’s being charged by the UK firm 5GBioShield, which is selling a USB stick that, it says, can protect the user against the effects of 5G.

Electric bikes are all the rage, but James McKenzie wonders if the future lies with a minimalist kit that can be retrofitted to an ordinary bicycle

NASA astronauts have been successfully flown to the International Space Station (ISS) by a commercial vehicle for the first time.

One curious result of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a rising interest in sourdough bread, which you can make at home by fermenting dough with naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast.

In response to Alan T Collins’ letter “Frying pan to fire” (February p21), which touched on clean electric sources for electric vehicles.