News & Comment

Neuromorphic systems are currently experiencing a rapid upswing due to the fact that today's CMOS (complementary metal oxide silicon) based technologies are increasingly approaching their limits. In particular, for the area of machine learning, energy consumption of today's electronics is an important limitation, that also contributes toward the ever-increasing impact of digitalization on our climate. Thus, in order to better meet the special requirements of unconventional computing, new physical substrates for bio-inspired computing schemes are extensively exploited. The aim of this Guest Edited Collection is to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research along three main lines: memristive materials and devices, emulation of cellular learning (neurons and synapses), and unconventional computing and network schemes.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) represent a new paradigm, both in cell biology and medicine; specifically, the idea that functional content itself may be delivered directly to cells. EVs are cell-derived membranous structures that work as intercellular communicators exerting their function by transporting their cargo that includes nucleic acids, proteins and lipids. EVs play an essential role in normal physiology, but also in pathological communication, for instance, in cancer, EVs are thought to deliver oncogenic molecules (such as proteins, peptides, RNAs…) to neighboring cells, enhancing propagation of neoplastic cells. Not surprisingly, EV research has become common-place in every field of biomedicine, being explored as diagnostics and therapeutics.

This Collection gathers original Articles that investigate the application of extracellular vesicles on diagnostics and therapeutics, and that report advances in the knowledge of EV biology and the methodological tools for their study.

Radioisotopes can be produced artificially from stable nuclei through the interaction with particles or highly energetic photons. In combination with modern detection and counting techniques, radioisotopes and radiochemical methods uniquely contribute to the health sciences. This Collection showcases salient aspects of medical radioisotope science ranging from the production, recovery and purification of radioisotopes to the methods used to attach them to biomolecules. The Collection also presents studies that highlight the importance of radiochemistry in the assessment of environmental radioactivity.

More than two centuries ago Henri de Saint-Simon envisaged physical laws to describe human societies. Driven by advances in statistical physics, network science, data analysis, and information technology, this vision is becoming a reality. Many of the grandest challenges of our time are of a societal nature, and methods of physics are increasingly playing a central role in improving our understanding of these challenges, and helping us to find innovative solutions. The Social physics Collection at Scientific Reports is dedicated to this research.

A return to the Moon, Mars expeditions, and a rise in space tourism will lead to an increasing number of human spaceflights. The ‘Gravitational biology and space medicine’ Collection focuses on the challenges to the health of humans in space during long-term space missions and the physiological changes during short-term altered gravity conditions, the possible influence of space radiation, available countermeasures and possible applications on Earth. In addition, studies reporting on in vivo changes in space-flown mice were published. Finally, this Collection also brings together articles reporting experiments using cells cultured under conditions of real microgravity on the International Space Station, or exposed in ground-based facilities, in order to study morphological and molecular alterations in different cell types.