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A letter to the editor is presented that discusses commented papers published in the journal "Europhysics Letters."

Suppose that your house needs some restoration, and that you call a master mason asking for an estimate. If the mason replies at once that he will quote 1000 € for himself, plus 500 € for each helper apprentice, you will likely be puzzled, if not annoyed. Surely you have good reasons to complain, reasoning that the job you ask for should be remunerated with a fixed amount, irrespective of the number of labourers involved. Yet, this is not a criterion that we usually apply when evaluating the CV of an applicant for an academic position or for a grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study that illustrates the importance of overcoming the technical difficulties in accelerating radioactive nuclei beams to help push back the boundaries of nuclear physics research.

A response from the author on the topic antropogenic global warming (AGW) consensus in the 2013 issue is presented.

A letter to the editor is presented regarding the antropogenic global warming (AGW) consensus by John Crook and colleagues in the 2013 issue.

Machine learning is everywhere in our daily life. From the social media and bank sector to transportation and telecommunication, we cannot avoid using it, sometimes even without noticing that we are relying on it. Astronomy and astrophysics are no exception. From telescope time and survey telescope scheduling through object detection and classification, to cleaning images and making large simulations smarter and quicker to it is ubiquitous to use machine learning algorithms. To illustrate this silent revolution, we checked the NASA Astronomical Data System website and searched for the keyword 'machine learning' in abstracts of astronomical and astrophysical papers. In 2000 we found 56, in 2010 889, and by 2020 no less than 35,659 abstracts contained the magic two words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of research papers published yearly shows a staggering exponential growth. One can in fact witness a century-long publication avalanche (Fig.1). According to the two major databases INSPEC and Thomson Reuters, there is a 300-fold increase in the number of published items since the year 1900. The world of science has recently reached such a level of proliferating complexity that its structural evolution itself poses challenging scientific problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As explained in a paper in the preceding issue of EPN [2], the bulk of the climate system is a thermal machine by which the two fluids of the Eearth envelope transport energy from low to high latitudes. The present paper emphasizes the role of interactions in the fashioning of the climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical trapping microscopy unravels open questions in statistical physics by making ultraprecise measurements of Brownian motion in diverse fluid environments. Moreover, the advent of pulsed lasers promises to push the boundaries even further, offering insights on how the compressibility of fluid flow affects Brownian particles at previously unexplored time scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 22 years since the first experimental demonstration of attosecond pulses, the attosecond science has become a very active field of research, with prominent applications in atomic, molecular and solid-state physics. Experimental advances, in terms of new sources, devices and techniques, are still required, together with new theoretical tools and approaches, but attosecond physics has firmly established as a mature research field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological artefacts included in cultural heritage contribute to the knowledge of our roots, which may help us to learn about our future. Although the connection between ancient times and nuclear technology seems farfetched, this paper will try to show how nuclear radiation of various kinds can be irreplaceable in the elemental composition analysis of an archaeological find. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Using Twitter can be more than just a social media activity. It can be a real career incubator in which researchers can develop their professional circles, launch new research projects and get helped by the community at various stages of the projects". In a PLOS Computational Biology paper experienced scientific Twitter users share 'Ten simple rules for getting started on Twitter as a scientists' [1]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technology that ELI provides and is developing at a very rapid pace, so the opportunities to study new phenomena in a wide range of scientific areas are also advancing very quickly (Scientific publications at http://www.eli-np.ro/scientific_papers.php). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physics is irresistible. Though prepared to become a teacher of French at an Austrian highschool, Lise Meitner, daughter of a lawyer, could not help coming under the spell of physics. By lucky coincidence she followed courses dispensed by no one less than Ludwig Boltzmann, whose wit and humour proved contagious. After her PhD, under Franz Exner, she moved on, not to Paris to work with Marie Curie, but to Berlin, to consult with Max Planck on future contingencies. Before leaving for Berlin, however, she was introduced to 'radioactivity' by Stefan Meyer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europhysics Letters was cofounded in 1986 by 17 European learned societies, and merged the two existing Letter journals Lettere al Nuovo Cimento – published by the Società Italiana di Fisica (SIF) – and the Journal de Physique Lettres, from the Société Françcaise de Physique (SFP). The original idea was to create a real European Letter journal competitive with Physical Review Letters of the American Physical Society. The major scientific force behind EPL is the European Physical Society (EPS) that celebrated its 50th anniversary only last year in Geneva. The publication of Europhysics Letters, re-baptized EPL in 2007 to emphasize its global impact, is a joint venture of the publishing houses of three physical societies: the Institute of Physics (IOP), the SIF, and the SFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional electronics use the flow of electric charges and are based on standard semiconductors. Spintronic devices exploit the electrons' spin to generate and control currents and to combine electric and magnetic signals. Today there is a strong effort worldwide to integrate spintronic devices with standard CMOS technology towards hybrid spin-CMOS chips, offering advantages in terms of power consumption, compactness, and speed. Recent results (from SAMSUNG [1], TSMC [2], etc.) confirm the merit of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decades of the 19th century Hungary came to flourish as an independent part of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy; 1867 was a crucial year, a year of 'Ausgleich', 'Compromise'. József Eötvös, Hungary's leading intellectual and Cabinet Minister, reorganized science. He sent his son to Heidelberg, where junior learned physics from i.a. Bunsen, Helmholtz and Kirchhoff. What more could a youngster wish for? Roland Eötvös returned home with a predilection for fundamental matters, most of all for the nature of gravity and its relation to inertia. Geophysics, Hungary's pride, finally took centre stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sun, the ultimate energy resource of our planet, transfers energy to the Earth at an average power of 23,000 TW. Earth surface can be regarded as a huge panel transforming solar energy into a more convenient mechanical form, the wind. Since millennia wind is recognized as an exploitable form of energy and it is common knowledge that the higher you go, the stronger the winds flow. To go high is difficult; however Bill Gates cites high wind among possible energy miracles in the near future. Public awareness of this possible miracle is still missing, but today's technology is ready for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the stellar evolution and the origin of chemical elements are the main goals of Nuclear Astrophysics. In the last century, many collaborations worked to develop experiments and accelerators to study in Earth laboratories the main nuclear processes taking place in stars at their relevant temperature. As an example, we present the measurement of the 13C(α,n)16O reaction performed by the LUNA collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science and religion are two separate fields, as Dawkins clearly states in his book 'The God delusion'1. His crystal-clear and critical analysis shows that religion hinders the development of an independent mind in young people. More specific, it is the church with its clerics that is most guilty of this negative role. In a recent paper by Polkinghorne, the interplay of physics and religion is considered on a more philosophical basis, emphasizing the role of searching for a wider context for understanding the intelligibility of the structure of physics2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on water lenses. It states that water is a natural optical instrument. For example, a rail droplet on a plain surface can serve as a convex hemispherical lens. The article contains an experimentation with a glass of water and a piece of paper, which proves that water has the properties of a lens.

In 2007, Michael Longo published a startling result: he appeared to have found a fundamental handedness to the large-scale structure of the Universe, in an asymmetry between clockwise and anticlockwise spiral galaxies. His sample of 22 thousand galaxies had been examined partly by eye and partly algorithmically, and so the challenge was laid down to the community to verify or refute this result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum mechanics gives probabilistic predictions, it is very abstract, and leads to paradoxes. It was discovered in 1925 in two acts of ingenious creativity. By Heisenberg, at the Helgoland island, and by Schrödinger half a year later in Alps. It allows to explain and predict an enormous range of phenomena, but almost immediately met an opposition. Einstein fully recognized it as a practical tool, but criticized its non-deterministic nature. The Einstein-Bohr debate began. Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger ended it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultimate aim of fusion research is to generate electricity by fusing light atoms into heavier ones, thereby converting mass into energy. The most efficient fusion reaction is based on merging the hydrogenic isotopes: Deuterium (²D) and Tritium (³T) into Helium (4 He) and a neutron, which releases 17.6 MeV in the form of kinetic energy of the reaction products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the total collapse of three large steel-framed high-rises. Since then, scientists and engineers have been working to understand why and how these unprecedented structural failures occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the study that develops a method to upscale the quantity of coating without affecting the quality and homogeneity of industrial granular material.

The article reports on the application of the emerging nonvolatile binary data storage device, ferroelectric tunnel junction (FTJ), which is switched through pure electronic mechanism.

The article reports on the physicists Albert Einstein's view of forgotten cosmology model of the universe.

Development of space proven technologies, fundamental research in microgravity and preparation of future space missions all benefit from next generation drop tower facilities like the Einstein-Elevator. The facility is being made available within a DFG core facility center in Hannover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mini-theme of this EPN issue is complex systems. It is also the subject of two special issues of EPJ-ST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In August 2021, at the National Ignition Facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA, a 1.35 MJ fusion yield was obtained. It is a demonstration of the validity of the Inertial Confinement Fusion approach to achieve energy-efficient thermonuclear fusion in the laboratory. It is a historical milestone that the scientific community has achieved after decades of efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers step-by-step instructions for making the drawing taped tightly onto the back of a cylindrical glass of water, or beer, or white wine to see the image.

The article presents a study that illustrates the design, manufacturing and characterization of an integrated circuit (IC) that uses the plasma oscillations phenomena in silicon nanotransistors for the detection of a 300 gigahertz carrier frequency wireless signal.

The article reports on the study that demonstrates simple way of certifying quantum discord in continuous variable states by checking the difference between conditioned marginal distributions.