Phytoplankton biomass is a crucial measure of the health of ocean ecosystems. An impressive synthesis of the relevant data, stretching back to more than 100 years ago, provides a connection with climate change.

Noise is usually viewed as the bane of measurements. But a neat experiment has confirmed a long-standing prediction for an exotic electronic state of matter through the increase of noise in charge transmission.

The quantum Hall effect takes place in a two-dimensional electron gas under a strong magnetic field and involves current flow along the edges of the sample. In the fractional regime, counter-propagating modes that carry energy but not charge — the so-called neutral modes — have been predicted but never observed. These authors report the first direct observation of these elusive modes.