US funding uncertainties threaten to sink key global oceanography projects

Scientists have developed a new type of "virtual" metasurface—capable of controlling light in ways traditional lenses and optics can't—which they say is superior to the current approach, which relies on ultrathin engineered materials. The Nottingham Trent University team says the work will help fully optimize metasurface potential for a range of real-world applications and paves the way for a move from physical to virtual platforms in nanotechnology.

When people think of workplace segregation, they usually think of race or gender. Yet Americans are also sorted at work by something employers rarely measure: how they vote.

Australia is home to unusual mammals not found anywhere else—consider the platypus, Tasmanian devil or red kangaroo. But did you know our understanding of this continent's incredible mammalian diversity is still incomplete?

Strongly interacting quantum particles are key to some of the most fascinating phenomena in modern physics—from magnetism and superconductivity to topological states. Yet the complexity of such systems makes many of their properties difficult to understand even today. A research team from Innsbruck and Turin has now proposed a new theoretical framework for generating and studying these exotic states of matter in ultracold magnetic atoms in a one-dimensional lattice.