The Helgoland 2025 meeting, marking 100 years of quantum mechanics, has featured a lot of mind-bending fundamental physics, quite a bit of which has left me scratching my head.
So it was great to hear a brilliant talk by David Moore of Yale University about some amazing practical experiments using levitated, trapped microspheres as quantum sensors to detect what he calls the âinvisibleâ universe.
If the work sounds familar to you, thatâs because Mooreâs team won a Physics World Top 10 Breakthrough of the Year award in 2024 for using their technique to detect the alpha decay of individual lead-212 atoms.
Speaking in the Nordseehalle on the island of Helgoland, Moore explained the next stage of the experiment, which could see it detect neutrinos âin a couple of monthsâ at the earliest â and âat least within a yearâ at the latest.
Of course, physicists have already detected neutrinos, but itâs a complicated business, generally involving huge devices in deep underground locations where background signals are minimized. Yaleâs set up is much cheaper, smaller and more convenient, involving no more than a couple of lab benches.
As Moore explained, he and his colleagues first trap silica spheres at low pressure, before removing excess electrons to electrically neutralize them. They then stabilize the spheresâ rotation before cooling them to microkelvin temperatures.
In the work that won the Physics World award last year, the team used samples of radon-220, which decays first into polonium-216 and then lead-212. These nuclei embed theselves in the silica spheres, which recoil when the lead-212 decays by releasing an alpha particle (Phys. Rev.Lett.133 023602).
Mooreâs team is able to measure the tiny recoil by watching how light scatters off the spheres. âWe can see the force imparted by a subatomic particle on a heavier object,â he told the audience at Helgoland. âWe can see single nuclear decays.â
Now the plan is to extend the experiment to detect neutrinos. These wonât (at least initially) be the neutrinos that stream through the Earth from the Sun or even those from a nuclear reactor.
Instead, the idea will be to embed the spheres with nuclei that undergo beta decay, releasing a much lighter neutrino in the process. Moore says the team will do this within a year and, one day, potentially even use to it spot dark matter.
âWe are reaching the quantum measurement regime,â he said. Itâs a simple concept, even if the name â âSearch for new Interactions in a Microsphere Precision Levitation Experimentâ (SIMPLE) â isnât.
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The animal world â including some of its ickiest parts â never ceases to amaze. According to researchers in Canada and Singapore, velvet worm slime contains an ingredient that could revolutionize the design of high-performance polymers, making them far more sustainable than current versions.
âWe have been investigating velvet worm slime as a model system for inspiring new adhesives and recyclable plastics because of its ability to reversibly form strong fibres,â explains Matthew Harrington, the McGill University chemist who co-led the research with Ali Miserez of Nanyang Technological University (NTU). âWe needed to understand the mechanism that drives this reversible fibre formation, and we discovered a hitherto unknown feature of the proteins in the slime that might provide a very important clue in this context.â
The velvet worm (phylum Onychophora) is a small, caterpillar-like creature that lives in humid forests. Although several organisms, including spiders and mussels, produce protein-based slimy material outside their bodies, the slime of the velvet worm is unique. Produced from specialized papillae on each side of the wormâs head, and squirted out in jets whenever the worm needs to capture prey or defend itself, it quickly transforms from a sticky, viscoelastic gel into stiff, glassy fibres as strong as nylon.
When dissolved in water, these stiff fibres return to their biomolecular precursors. Remarkably, new fibres can then be drawn from the solution â implyimg that the instructions for fibre self-assembly are âencodedâ within the precursors themselves, Harrington says.
High-molecular-weight protein identified
Previously, the molecular mechanisms behind this reversibility were little understood. In the present study, however, the researchers used protein sequencing and the AI-guided protein structure prediction algorithm AlphaFold to identify a specific high-molecular-weight protein in the slime. Known as a leucine-rich repeat, this protein has a structure similar to that of a cell surface receptor protein called a Toll-like receptor (TLR).
In biology, Miserez explains, this type of receptor is involved in immune system response. It also plays a role in embryonic or neural development. In the worm slime, however, thatâs not the case.
âWe have now unveiled a very different role for TLR proteins,â says Miserez, who works in NTUâs materials science and engineering department. âThey play a structural, mechanical role and can be seen as a kind of âglue proteinâ at the molecular level that brings together many other slime proteins to form the macroscopic fibres.â
Miserez adds that the team found this same protein in different species of velvet worms that diverged from a common ancestor nearly 400 million years ago. âThis means that this different biological function is very ancient from an evolutionary perspective,â he explains.
âIt was very unusual to find such a protein in the context of a biological material,â Harrington adds. âBy predicting the proteinâs structure and its ability to bind to other slime proteins, we were able to hypothesize its important role in the reversible fibre formation behaviour of the slime.â
The teamâs hypothesis is that the reversibility of fibre formation is based on receptor-ligand interactions between several slime proteins. While Harrington acknowledges that much work remains to be done to verify this, he notes that such binding is a well-described principle in many groups of organisms, including bacteria, plants and animals. It is also crucial for cell adhesion, development and innate immunity. âIf we can confirm this, it could provide inspiration for making high-performance non-toxic (bio)polymeric materials that are also recyclable,â he tells Physics World.
The study, which is detailed in PNAS, was mainly based on computational modelling and protein structure prediction. The next step, say the McGill researchers, is to purify or recombinantly express the proteins of interest and test their interactions in vitro.
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Iâve been immersed in quantum physics this week at the Helgoland 2025 meeting, which is being held to mark Werner Heisenbergâs seminal development of quantum mechanics on the island 100 years ago.
But when it comes to science, Helgoland isnât only about quantum physics. Itâs also home to an outpost of the Alfred Wegener Institute, which is part of the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and named after the German scientist who was the brains behind continental drift.
Dating back to 1892, the Biological Institute Helgoland (BAH) has about 80 permanent staff. They include Sebastian Primpke, a polymer scientist who studies the growing danger of microplastics and microfibres on the oceans.
Microplastics, which are any kind of small plastic materials, generally range in size from one micron to about 5 mm. They are a big danger for fish and other forms of marine life, as Marric Stephens reported in this recent feature.
Primpke studies microplastics using biofilms attached to a grid immersed in a tank containing water piped continuously in from the North Sea. The tank is covered with a lid to keep samples in the dark, mimicking underwater conditions.
Deep-sea spying A researcher looks at electron micrographs to spot microfibres in seawater samples. (Courtesy: Matin Durrani)
He and his team periodically take samples from the films out, studying them in the lab using infrared and Raman microscopes. Theyâre able to obtain information such as the length, width, area, perimeter of individual microplastic particles as well as how convex or concave they are.
Other researchers at the Hegloland lab study microfibres, which can come from cellulose and artificial plastics, using electron microscopy. You can find out more information about the labâs work here.
Primpke, who is a part-time firefighter, has lived and worked on Helgoland for a decade. He says itâs a small community, where everyone knows everyone else, which has its good and bad sides.
With only 1500 residents on the island, which lies 50 km from the mainland, finding good accommodation can be tricky. But with so many tourists, there are more amenities than youâd expect of somewhere of that size.
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In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast we explore the career opportunities open to physicists and engineers looking to work within healthcare â as medical physicists or clinical engineers.
Physics Worldâs Tami Freeman is in conversation with two early-career physicists working in the UKâs National Health Service (NHS). They are Rachel Allcock, a trainee clinical scientist at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, and George Bruce, a clinical scientist at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. We also hear from Chris Watt, head of communications and public affairs at IPEM, about the new IPEM careers guide.
This episode was created in collaboration with IPEM, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine. IPEM owns the journal Physics in Medicine & Biology.
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Jack Harris, a quantum physicist at Yale University in the US, has a fascination with islands. He grew up on Marthaâs Vineyard, an island just south of Cape Cod on the east coast of America, and believes that islands shape a personâs thinking. âYour world view has a border â youâre on or youâre off,â Harris said on a recent episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.
Itâs perhaps not surprising, then, that Harris is one of the main organizers of a five-day conference taking place this week on Helgoland, where Werner Heisenberg discovered quantum mechanics exactly a century ago. Heisenberg had come to the tiny, windy, pollen-free island, which lies 50 km off the coast of Germany, in June 1925, to seek respite from the hay fever he was suffering from in GĂśttingen.
According to Heisenbergâs 1971 book Physics and Beyond, he supposedly made his breakthrough early one morning that month. Unable to sleep, Heisenberg left his guest house just before daybreak and climbed a tower at the top of the islandâs southern headland. As the Sun rose, Heisenberg pieced together the curious observations of frequencies of light that materials had been seen to absorb and emit.
Where it all began This memorial stone and plaque sits at the spot of Werner Heisenbergâs achievements 100 years ago. (Courtesy: Matin Durrani)
While admitting that the real history of the episode isnât as simple as Heisenberg made out, Harris believes itâs nevertheless a âvery compellingâ story. âIt has a place and a time: an actual, clearly defined, quantized discrete place â an island,â Harris says. âThis is a cool story to have as part of the fabric of [the physics] community.â Hardly surprising, then, that more than 300 physicists, myself included, have travelled from across the world to the Helgoland 2025 meeting.
Much time has been spent so far at the event discussing the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, which might seem a touch self-indulgent and esoteric given the burgeoning (and financially lucrative) applications of the subject. Do we really need to concern ourselves with, say, non-locality, the meaning of measurement, or the nature of particles, information and randomness?
Why did we need to hear from Juan Maldacena from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton getting so excited talking about information loss and black holes? (Fun fact: a âwhiteâ black hole the size of a bacterium would, he claimed, be as hot as the Sun and emit so much light we could see it with the naked eye.)
But the fundamental questions are fascinating in their own right. Whatâs more, if we want to build, say, a quantum computer, itâs not just a technical and engineering endeavour. âTo make it work you have to absorb a lot of the foundational topics of quantum mechanics,â says Harris, pointing to challenges such as knowing what kinds of information alter how a system behaves. âWeâre at a point where real-word practical things like quantum computing, code breaking and signal detection hinge on our ability to understand the foundational questions of quantum mechanics.â
Connexion
This episode is supported by Radformation, which is redefining automation in radiation oncology with a full suite of tools designed to streamline clinical workflows and boost efficiency. At the centre of it all is AutoContour, a powerful AI-driven autocontouring solution trusted by centres worldwide.
