Table of contents

Condensed-matter physicists like to put materials under extreme conditions to tease out their interesting properties. So why not see if anything interesting happens with everyday objects?

Dried spaghetti has long perplexed physicists due to its tendency to break into three pieces when bent, rather than two.

Still on food, the "Cheerio effect" is a classic example of fluid dynamics in action. Drop a few of the multigrain rings into milk one at a time and watch as they clump together.

The humble barbecue lighter is a required tool for outdoor-cooking enthusiasts. But now it has been given a different use thanks to the work of Gaurav Byagathvalli and Saad Bhamla from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

A statistical solution to the infamous three-body problem of classical physics could explain why gravitational-wave detectors have observed numerous black-hole mergers, as Tim Wogan reports

Researchers in the Republic of Korea have used printable inks that serve as both the electrode and an electrolyte to create flexible contact lenses that incorporate supercapacitors and wireless-charging components.

Dogs trained to sniff out early signs of cancer in human breath are probably detecting large molecules captured by aerosols in the breath, rather than more volatile substances present as gases.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has chosen Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, as the site of a next-generation electron–ion collider (EIC), beating off competition from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory in Virginia.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a new mission to take a closer look at nearby bright stars that are already known to have exoplanets orbiting around them.

Sweeping changes to US university-level teaching in physics and astronomy are required to address the long-running and systemic exclusion of African Americans.

"Significant mistakes of judgment" have been made by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in its dealings with the convicted sex offender and accused paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died last year.

Scientists in China have successfully developed and tested the world's first portable quantum ground station. The device, which features a 28 cm telescope, successfully made a connection to China's quantum satellite, Micius, late last year.

About 80% of Chinese scientists who have gone abroad to study or work in the previous decade have returned home and are now publishing high-impact, collaborative research.

Scientific societies and publishers have voiced their concerns over the Trump administration's rumoured plans to sign an executive order that would make all scholarly papers produced by government-sponsored research immediately available free to the public.

Papers in "predatory" journals attract fewer citations than articles in peer-reviewed journals, with more than half not receiving a single citation within five years of being published.

The Trump administration has nominated Sethuraman Panchanathan as the next director of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Twenty female-only professorships at 12 Irish institutions have been approved for funding by the Irish government. The radical move aims to address gender inequality in Irish academia where women are underrepresented in fields such as physics, engineering and computer science.

Physicists from across Europe have outlined plans to build a new type of accelerator facility based on "plasma wakefields".

Science fared unexpectedly well in the $1.4 trillion US budget for the 2020 financial year, which ends on 30 September. Passed by Congress in December and signed by President Donald Trump, the bill contains some big increases for science-related agencies.

Female academics in New Zealand can earn up to NZ$400,000 (£200,000) less over their lifetime than men. That is according to a study that compared salary bands and research performance scores – as calculated by New Zealand's system for awarding government funding.

The upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope on Cerro Pachón in Chile has been renamed the Vera C Rubin Observatory, making it the first national US observatory to be named after a female astronomer.

A $980m US solar-energy project that promised to "win the future" for concentrating solar power technologies faces the prospect of bankruptcy amid a series of financial, legal and technological issues.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced it will launch the country's third mission to the Moon later this year.

Thomas Young's famous double-slit experiment is the perfect analogy for Brexit.

Leonie Mueck, Carmen Palacios-Berraquero and Divya M Persaud argue that the term "quantum supremacy" should be replaced in favour of one that is more responsible

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, why – asks Robert P Crease – do conspiracy theories still abound?

Greta Thunberg crossed the Atlantic on a zero-emission yacht, but how realistic is it to de-carbonize air travel? James McKenzie thinks he has the answer

In reply to Margaret Harris's feature on the challenges and opportunities for airborne wind energy ("Harnessing the wind" December 2019, pp26–30).

In response to Rachel Brazil's feature article "The physics of public opinion" (January pp31–34) where she explains how physicists are trying to predict shifting opinions using the laws that describe the physical world.

In the December issue we published a Sudoku variant created by reader Michael Metcalf. As a reminder, the rules were that each number from 1 to 16 must appear once in each row, column and 4 × 4 box, as well as in each of the two diagonals (X-sudoku). The solution is provided below.

In response to Kate Ravilious' article "Biomass energy: green or dirty" (January pp24–28), in which she investigates whether biomass fuel is as clean as it seems.

The Frontiers article "Clingfish inspires suction cups for underwater robots" (December 2019, p6) should have said "silicone suction cups" and not silicon.

The refurbishment of public buildings is often more complex than meets the eye. Anna Demming speaks to acousticians and architects about the acoustic considerations behind their designs for public spaces, and some of the tricks to tackle the conflicting demands on these venues

Thomas Young's double-slit experiment is famous for demonstrating the principle of interference. Andrew Murray explains why it's now possible to carry out an equivalent experiment using lasers that have excited individual rubidium atoms

Syed Faisal ur Rahman delves into the various explanations for the strange "cold spot" in the cosmic microwave background, the ancient light of the Big Bang, that bathes the universe

Frank Close's new book Trinity focuses on Klaus Fuchs, a Communist physicist and "the most dangerous spy in history".

When I first picked up Vaclav Smil's latest book, Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities, I wondered whether his main argument would be that systems as diverse as nature and demographics follow a universal growth trend. But Smil also takes pleasure in exploring the idiosyncrasies of different growth processes, and the factors that influence them.

Despite the advent of radio astronomy in the early 20th century, and the ability to listen to our galactic neighbours, it's not obvious that anyone wants to be heard, and it's not obvious that anyone is saying anything. But this hasn't stopped scientists asking: if there is intelligent life out there, could we understand each other? That's the crux of science writer Daniel Oberhaus's new book Extraterrestrial Languages.

Trapped-ion computing pioneer Chris Monroe describes how decades of experience in academic and government research led him to start his own quantum computing firm

Julie Bellingham is an award-winning garden designer based in Oxfordshire, UK.

Cornell University's Paul Ginsparg has been awarded the 2020 Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

Whenever bad science appears on screen, a physicist is likely to declare "that's wrong!", making it hard to just sit back and enjoy the action along with your popcorn.