Weird new electron behaviour thrills physicists

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Electrons in stacked sheets of staggered graphene collectively act as though they have fractional charges at ultralow temperatures.Credit: Ramon Andrade 3DCiencia/Science Photo Library Two teams have observed that electrons, which usually have a charge of −1, … Read more

Weird new electron behaviour in stacked graphene thrills physicists

Electrons in stacked sheets of staggered graphene collectively act as though they have fractional charges at ultra-low temperatures.Credit: Ramon Andrade 3DCiencia/Science Photo Library Minneapolis, Minnesota Last May, a team led by physicists at the University of Washington in Seattle observed something peculiar. When the scientists ran an electrical current across two atom-thin sheets of molybdenum … Read more

Bumblebees show behaviour previously thought to be unique to humans

Scientists have long accepted the existence of animal culture, be that tool use in New Caledonian crows, or Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes. Read the paper here: Bumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone But one thing thought to distinguish human culture is our ability to do things too complex to work out … Read more

Bumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone

Culture in animals can be broadly conceptualized as the sum of a population’s behavioural traditions, which, in turn, are defined as behaviours that are transmitted through social learning and that persist in a population over time4. Although culture was once thought to be exclusive to humans and a key explanation of our own evolutionary success, … Read more