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.

Plasma science in the US needs to become more diverse to include women and under-represented minorities. That is the conclusion of a report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, which says that as researchers in the field move towards retirement, government and universities should ensure enough people stay in the field.

More than 1700 scientists in Ireland have signed an open letter to the country’s elected representatives calling for a full ministerial position for science and higher education.

Think you know your physics trivia? Test your mettle with our two-part summer quiz. We begin with general physics, astronomy, the 60th anniversary of the invention of the laser, as well as physics in art and fiction.

Powerful blue lasers are producing the high-quality copper welds needed to make batteries for electric vehicles, as Richard Stevenson reports

Why Physics World magazine has published an article about people who think the Earth is flat.

Physicists in Singapore and the UK have shown that topological insulators can exist in four spatial dimensions.

Sabine Hossenfelder is a science writer and theoretical physicist who studies quantum gravity. She is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies where she leads the Emergent Gravity group.

In response to Jonathan Pugh’s letter “High ambitions for net carbon neutral” (June p25) in which he argues that it would be preferable to make air travel carbon neutral, than to eradicate it.

The Internet is now half a century old. Author and journalist James Ball's latest book The System: Who Owns the Internet and How it Owns Us is a compelling historical analysis.

A new deep-space ground station to support human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars is set to be built in South Africa. The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and NASA have agreed to study where the station could be established.

Medical physicist and entrepreneur Maryellen Giger talks to Margaret Harris about how she established the use of AI in breast cancer imaging

Physicists in the US and Russia have demonstrated that iron nuclei can be made transparent to gamma rays that they would normally absorb.

In response to Stephen Ornes’ feature “Turning water into watts” (March pp31–34) in which he explores the research and business ventures looking into wave energy, and harnessing the vast power of the world’s oceans.

Researchers in the US have created a new energy-based benchmark for “quantum advantage” and have used it to show that quantum computers use several orders of magnitude less energy than the world’s most powerful supercomputer when doing a specific task

Physicists claim to have deduced the minimum viscosity of any fluid that takes into account the quantum-mechanical nature of molecular interactions, as Edwin Cartlidge reports

Space has long been the final frontier for the entertainment industry, but that might be changing thanks to discussions between Tom Cruise and NASA about shooting a movie on the International Space Station (ISS).

More needs to be done to make the perpetrators of sexual harassment in science accountable. That is according to a report by the American Geophysical Union (AGU)

The Isle of Man Post Office has released a set of eight stamps to honour the contribution of key workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The eight stamps feature words including care, compassion and community, along with the strapline “will carry us through”.

Richard Bray says it’s as vital now as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic for physics-based firms to protect their innovation

Marco Carlone, founder of Linax Technologies, talks to Tami Freeman about his motivation for creating an online learning tool that teaches medical physicists how to use and understand linear accelerators

Graduate students under COVID-19 lockdown complain they are being unfairly asked to carry out more tasks such as online teaching, as Peter Gwynne reports

Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has almost single-handedly transformed astronomical research and altered the public’s perception of space. Now, three decades on, attention is turning to its successor, as Keith Cooper reports

John Houghton, the physicist who spent 14 years as head of the scientific assessment working group of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), died on 15 April at the age of 88.

Researchers have long sought to observe fast-moving events at ever-higher speeds. Charalampos Tsoumpas explains why our ability to track gamma rays emitted just picoseconds apart could lead to a new generation of medical-imaging devices

Sarah Cruddas is a space journalist, TV host, author and director at Space for Humanity – a global non-profit dedicated to democratizing access to space.

Losses from the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland in the last 16 years have far outpaced snow accumulation according to researchers at the University of Washington.

The US should construct its own fusion power plant as well as remain a partner in the ITER fusion experiment currently being built in France.

Not many physicists carry a gun to defend themselves against attackers provoked by their research, but that’s exactly what Wilmer Souder once felt the need to do.

In response to Keith Cooper’s blog series celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, in which he chose and explored its 10 best images.

Physicist Katsuhiko Sato from the University of Tokyo talks to Graham Jones about his work on inflation and the future of physics in Japan

I need to start this review by saying that I loved the premise of this collection of essays by the physicist-turned-computer scientist Stephen Wolfram. The cover blurb of Adventures of a Computational Explorer teases "science consulting for a Hollywood movie, solving problems of AI ethics, hunting for the source of an unusual polyhedron, communicating with extraterrestrials" and even "finding the fundamental

The seemingly unconnected worlds of quantum physics and art have been linked from early in the 20th century. Part exhibition catalogue, part discourse on this relationship, Entangle: Physics and the Artistic Imagination , makes the case that imagination is critical for both practices, and both can learn from each other. The beautifully illustrated book is edited by Ariane Koek, the founder of the Arts