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Saturn as seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2008. Long-term tracking of the spacecraft's position has revealed no unexplained perturbations in Cassini's orbit.

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Quantum physics not only explains how matter behaves at the subatomic level, but is also used to create many devices in our everyday lives, from lasers and transistors to GPS and mobile phones. The next wave of innovation could lead to unbreakable encryption and computers that are up to one million times faster. On 6 April, Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) unit organised a workshop to discuss with experts the potential of these new quantum technologies.

A single chain of water molecules lines the cavity inside a carbon nanotube porin, which is embedded in a lipid bilayer.

The University of Georgia and Ben-Gurion University research team site-specifically inserted a small molecule named coralyne into the DNA and were able to create a single-molecule diode, which can be used as an active element in future nanoscale circuits.

From its perch high on a ridge, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity recorded this image of a Martian dust devil twisting through the valley below.

This schematic shows a TMDC monolayer coupled with a host ferromagnetic semiconductor, which is an experimental approach developed by Berkeley Lab scientists that could lead to valleytronic devices. Valley polarization can be directly determined from the helicity of the emitted electroluminescence, shown by the orange arrow, as a result of electrically injected spin-polarized holes to the TMDC monolayer, shown by the blue arrow. The black arrow represents the direction of the applied magnetic field.

Jiuquan launch centre

Using a two-part process, chemist Xiaohu Xia and his team found a way to turn ruthenium into a nanoframe, a promising metal catalyst.