Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Knots have been observed in a variety of classical systems, but so far not in the quantum regime. Knot solitons have now been created in a spinor Bose–Einstein condensate, exhibiting interesting topological structures, including Hopf fibration.
The membranes of red blood cells exhibit a flickering motion that has long been ascribed a thermal origin. Microrheology experiments provide direct evidence that flickering is an active process characterized by non-equilibrium dynamics.
Mechanical communication between cells is revealed in experiments on cardiac cells. Deformation of an underlying substrate induces beating in isolated cells, at a rate that can be sustained for over an hour after the stimulation ceases.
Shining intense laser light onto a thin aluminium foil creates a relativistic plasma aperture—and diffraction. As a result, an electron beam is generated with a spatial structure that can be changed by varying the characteristics of the laser pulse.
Cells break their symmetry to migrate, switching between protrusive and retractive edge activity to move directionally. Experiments and simulations reveal that this mode switching relies on a mechanism that depends on distance to the cell’s centre.
Fast-ignition laser fusion involves directing an intense relativistic electron beam onto a fuel target. Experiments and simulations now enable a visualization of the location of fast electrons and the energy-coupling mechanisms at play.
Time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy experiments are used to monitor the transition between Floquet–Bloch and Volkov states in the topological insulator Bi2Se3.
Exotic theories predict the violation of Lorentz symmetry, which could potentially be spotted in low-energy experiments. Using ytterbium ions could improve the current sensitivity bounds by five orders of magnitude.
Hydrodynamic coupling induces a vortex state in bacterial populations. Microfluidic experiments and modelling now demonstrate that lattices of these vortices can self-organize into patterns characterized by ferro- and antiferromagnetic order.
Crystal symmetries may protect single Dirac cones on the surface of a photonic crystal, creating a photonic analogue of a three-dimensional solid-state topological insulator.