Volume 7 Issue 4, April 2025

To avoid a replication crisis in physics, physicists need to understand how ever-changing social forces shape scientific practice — and even the underlying notions of replicability and objectivity.

Despite its benefits, globalized science also has problems, including asymmetric data sharing. Understanding the origin of these imbalances can help mitigate their long-term impacts.

The UK’s quantum strategy prioritizes quantum sensing, but hiring trends focus on quantum computing and communication. To meet targets, the UK must realign hiring and education with its immediate needs.

Barren plateaus are widely considered as one of the main limitations for variational quantum algorithms. This Review summarizes the latest understandings of barren plateaus, indicating its causes, architecture that will suffer from this phenomenon, and discusses strategies that can — and cannot — avoid it.

Experiments have shown that fast ions generated in fusion plasmas improve confinement by mitigating plasma turbulence. This Review explores possible physical mechanisms to explain these experimental observations.

The renormalization group (RG) is a theoretical framework to transform systems across scales and identify critical points of phase transitions. In recent years, efforts have extended RG to complex networks, which challenge traditional assumptions. This Technical Review covers key approaches and open challenges.

Quantum computing outperforms classical computing on a number of tasks. This Perspective offers a view on the future potential of quantum computing to enhance simulations of nonlinear systems such as turbulent flows.