Fluctuations of Lake Eyre, South Australia - NASA Science (.gov)

Superconductivity has many important practical applications, including creating powerful magnets used in high-resolution medical scans, transporting electricity efficiently, and building ultra-sensitive measuring devices. Until now, understanding exactly what lay behind this unique phenomenon at high temperatures has eluded scientists over many decades. But pioneering research, led by physicists at the University of Bristol and published this week in the journal Nature Physics, has identified the vital mechanism which explains how electrons in these copper-oxide high-temperature superconductors combine to transmit power with no loss of energy - the 'superconductive' state of infinite electrical conduction.

Voltage fluctuations, light fluctuations, temperature fluctuations—any fluctuations are troublesome and thus undesirable. They don't just cause discomfort; in engineering and medical applications, they affect the accuracy of measurements or introduce errors in controls. Even at the minute level of quantum phenomena, fluctuations are considered undesirable. But what if some fluctuations can be made useful? A theoretical study from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) shows that structured quantum fluctuations in light can be used to sense and generate useful quantum optical signals.

Professor Guillaume Chomicki from our Department of Biosciences has been awarded a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize for his internationally recognised research in evolutionary biology. The prizes, awarded by the Leverhulme Trust, recognise outstanding researchers whose work has already gained international recognition and whose future careers show exceptional promise. Guillaume conducts world-leading research into how partnerships between species evolve, persist and break down. He is particularly interested in why different species - such as insects and plants - form partnerships and what causes these relationships to change or break down. Partnerships over millions of years Much of Guillaume's work focuses on the Hydnophytinae, a group of around 100 plants that grow on the branches of rainforest trees across Australasia. They form swollen, hollow stems divided into chambers where ant colonies live. In return, the ants feed the plant with their waste and with the debris they carry home. Some of these plants rely on a single specialist ant, others accept many kinds, and some have given up ants altogether.

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractSimulation-based controller comparisons can report a single winner even when score differences are too small to justify a unique engineering preference. We assessed preference reliability for five fixed controllers on a numerically verified nonlinear rotary inverted pendulum model using two independent Latin-hypercube realizations across matched ± 10%, ± 15%, and ± 20% uncertainty bands (30,000 closed-loop simulations). A four-metric score and a prespecified 5% practical margin quantified controller separation. Under the common uncertainty score, PID had the lowest controller robustness index in every band, but the four leading indices remained within 3.87%. In the pooled ± 15% domain, all ten paired comparisons were detectable after Holm correction, yet 69.40% of 2,000 scenario blocks lacked a unique practical preference.