Quantum information science requires a source of entangled photon pairs, but existing sources suffer from a low intrinsic efficiency or poor extraction efficiency. Collecting emitted photons from quantum dots can be improved by coupling the dots to an optical cavity, but this is not easy for entangled photon pairs. Now, a suitable optical cavity has been made in the form of a 'photonic' molecule — two identical, connecting microcavities that are deterministically coupled to the optically active modes of a pre-selected quantum dot.

Emissions of African dust increased sharply in the early 1970s, but the human contribution to land degradation and dust mobilization remains poorly understood. Now, a 3,200-year record of dust deposition off northwest Africa has been constructed. On the basis of this dust record and a proxy record for West African precipitation, it is suggested that human-induced dust emissions from the Sahel region have contributed to the atmospheric dust load for more than 200 years.

One of the steps in the evolution of tetrapod limbs was the loss of the distinctive fringe of fin rays and fin folds found in the fins of fishes. It is now shown that two novel proteins, actinodin 1 and 2, are essential structural components of fin rays and fin folds in zebrafish, and are also encoded in the genomes of other teleost fish and at least one species of shark, but not in tetrapods. It is suggested that the loss of these genes may have contributed to the fin-to-limb transition in tetrapod evolution.