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Physics World November 2023

Physics World November 2023

Spinning a revolution: the physicists turning wood into clothes

You might not realize this, but the world’s fashion and clothing industry causes 10% of global carbon-dioxide emissions – more than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Fortunately, Finnish physicist Janne Poranen is on the case: he’s co-founded a company called Spinnova that is transforming cellulose from wood into textile fibre without using any chemicals. As this month's cover feature explains, the firm has a pilot production facility, with H&M and Adidas already taking an interest. Also in this issue: explore the latest on high-temperature superconductors, magnets that don’t need rare earths and the joys of switching your research field.

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Or you can read selected content from the November 2023 issue of Physics World here

the atom trap apparatus feature

Colder: beating the theoretical limit for laser cooling

Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier news

Optics pioneers win Nobel prize

Dias in his lab analysis

Superconductivity ‘damaged’ by retractions

Pencil drawing of three chemistry laureates news

Quantum dot inventors bag chemistry Nobel

Mining rare-earth elements feature

Magnets that don’t cost the rare earth

Hands pulling on spun fibre feature

Meet the physicists turning wood into clothes

Montage of a collection of recyclable materials opinion

The rule of three

The CERN Council Chamber opinion

Nobel prize rule must modernize

large flock of starlings review

From starlings to spin glasses

Hands of a fortune teller reading tarot cards review

A mathematician defines ‘unlikely’

Silvia Vignolini careers

The power of an open mind

The counting of medicine pills in a pill counter by a pharmacist wearing blue gloves holding a red plastic and pill containers on a wooden counter in a pharmacy lateral thoughts

How I realized I could not count

illustration of crumpled paper in the shapes of human heads. One is read and has a whistle in its mouth opinion

Science will suffer if we fail to preserve academic integrity

A light bulb with Earth decoration, planted in soil against a backdrop of blurred foliage

Tackling global sustainability challenges

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