Table of contents

Ever shared a pizza with someone really annoying who doesn't want the crust? Research by Joel Haddley and Stephen Worsley from the University of Liverpool on "monohedral disc tilings" has now shown the numerous ways you can split a circle into identical pieces with at least one piece not touching the centre of the circle.

It was a dream come true for particle physicist Joey Huston from Michigan State University when he got the chance to watch a live recording of the hit TV show The Big Bang Theory.

One of British astronaut Tim Peake's first duties aboard the International Space Station (ISS) might have come as a surprise to many: unfurling an image of a Stoke City flag in space.

Forget the glossy brochure, the best way to promote an upcoming major science facility is apparently to put it on a can of Coke.

Quantum entanglement has been created and measured between pairs of two different kinds of nuclei for the first time.

A new class of sound wave that can dramatically improve the delivery of inhaled drugs and vaccines has been identified by researchers at RMIT University in Australia.

Crystals and satellites don't sound like they would have much in common. But a new type of crystal, defined in terms of the relative motions of its constituents, has been proposed by three physicists in Canada – they came up with the idea of "choreographic crystals" while thinking about how to use several satellites to detect gravitational waves.

A new model of the slipperiness of ice suggests that a layer of disordered ice forms underneath a sliding object.

Researchers at Cardiff University in the UK have joined forces with the helmet-maker Charles Owen to develop a new material that could protect against a range of head injuries.

Peter Gwynne reports on three cases of sexual misconduct in the US astronomy community.

Scientists in China are preparing the country's first dark-matter satellite to start taking data following its launch on 17 December 2015 from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

NASA is considering the future of the $675m InSight Mars lander after its planned launch next month was cancelled when a fault was discovered with a key scientific instrument.

Almost a third of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in Australia are considering leaving their job within the next five years, according to a survey by the employee association Professionals Australia.

NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will become a formal project in 2016, a year earlier than initially planned.

Physicists in Ireland have welcomed some parts of a government plan to nearly double spending on research by the end of the decade.

An image of an electric mining drill at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL) in Australia has won first place in the 2015 Global Physics Photowalk "people's choice" category.

Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) last month issued a plan for the International Linear Collider (ILC) that calls on Japan to ramp up its expertise as it prepares to host the world's next-generation particle collider.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) have announced the discovery of four new elements: 113, 115, 117 and 118 – completing the periodic table's seventh row.

Ireland has announced it will join the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) – the world's biggest radio-telescope array.

The €1.2bn European X-ray Free Electron Laser (European XFEL) has taken a major step towards completion by accelerating its first beam of electrons.

More than 90% of academics in the UK think that membership of the European Union (EU) is a major benefit to science and engineering.

Peer review has been the backbone of scientific publishing for centuries, but many feel that the time has come for the system to be reformed. Michael Banks weighs up the options.

Peer review has strengths and any reforms need to be introduced carefully.

Robert P Crease looks at why peer review works, despite its flaws.

John Harnad argues that introducing payment for referees and making their names public would improve the quality and credibility of peer review.

In reply to the news article "Exergy: less heat, more light" (December 2015 pp10–11) about the efforts of a group of scientists within Science Europe (an umbrella organization for European research agencies) to redefine efficiency in terms of exergy, which the article described as "energy that can be used to do work, or...useful energy".

In reply to James Millen and André Xuereb's feature article "The rise of the quantum machines" (January pp23–26) about the emergence of quantum thermodynamics as a fruitful area of research.

In reply to Robert P Crease's article "A timely matter" (Critical Point, January p19) on a 1922 clash between Albert Einstein and the French philosopher Henri Bergson over the nature of time.

In reply to Robert P Crease's article "Logo motives" (Critical Point, December 2015 p17) on science logos.

The accelerating expansion of the universe could be explained by modifying general relativity so that gravity has mass – or so thinks a small group of physicists. Matthew Francis reports.

Can we map all the information being circulated in the human body, and would doing so be any use? Jon Cartwright explores the emerging interdisciplinary field of "network physiology".

Seagulls, sea lions and the comic-book hero Professor Radium were all recruited to fight the threat of submarines during the First World War. But as John Campbell explains, it was Ernest Rutherford who led the way a century ago in using acoustics to deter these deadly craft.

While there have been many popular-science books on the historical and scientific legacy of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, a gap exists in the literature for a definitive, accessible history of the theory's most famous offshoot: black holes. In Black Hole, the science writer Marcia Bartusiak aims for a discursive middle ground, writing solely about black holes at a level suitable for both high-school students and more mature readers while also giving some broader scientific context for black-hole research.

Nuclear Hitchhiker is a blog and podcast with an ambitious goal: to "educate and inform the public as to how nuclear energy, as well as radiation and other related issues, affect all of us".

Michael Hiltzik's Big Science recounts the beginnings of the Radiation (or Rad) Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, in the context of a biography of its founding director, Ernest Lawrence.

The story of astronomy has plenty of highlights. All of these highlights could (and in most cases do) have entire books written about them, but it is rare to find all of them in a single volume, let alone one as accessible as Ethan Siegel's Beyond the Galaxy.

For a physicist whose most important insight came in the year 1900 – and who by his own admission fell short of true scientific brilliance – Max Planck is remarkably well known. And as Brandon Brown points out in his fine new biography Planck: Driven by Vision, Broken by War, this stern old-fashioned Prussian gentleman was also responsible for "Planck's principle", the darkly comic observation that a new scientific idea becomes accepted "because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it".

Steve Roberts explains how a novel business idea – a specialist MRI scanner for horses – led his physics career down an unusual and rewarding path.

Steve Welch of the UK's Knowledge Transfer Network – which seeks to speed up innovation and bring scientific ideas to market – has been appointed director of the country's Space Innovation and Growth Strategy (IGS).

Robert Lang is an origami artist and author of several books on origami techniques.

When someone mentions a physics experiment, the first images that spring to mind are probably things like wires and bulbs, swinging pendulums and perhaps a 27 km particle accelerator.